Team-BHP - The English Movies Thread (No Spoilers Please)

Watched The Amazing Spider Man 2 (3D). 2.5/5
Found it pretty average. The film has all the big budget production values and special effects that you expect. The kids in the theater loved it !! I'll even have n number of sequels and spin-offs. It'll be a commercial success for sure.

However, IMO the film lacks a soul. You don't feel that 'connect' with Spidey here. The story line is predictable and I was actually yawning in the last 15-20 mins. The movie follows a very safe approach as it tries to pack in all the 'masala' which is pretty surprising as off late, superhero movies are being made with high focus on story-telling and character development (E.g Captain America: Winter soldier). So for people expecting a lot on these counts, the movie will disappoint.

O.T : I remember this joke I read somewhere when the Spider man reboot was announced. 'The Dark Knight Rises was the perfect end for the Batman trilogy. Now if some idiot decides to come up with The Amazing Batman, just kill him!!'

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (3D)

Same old wine in an improved package. 3D effects were especially good and I would rate it as the best special effects for film this year.

Otherwise I just felt everything is so predictable, except for the suspense with Mary Watson. And I am glad they finally decide to give some dignity to that character - unlike the previous series where her only role seemed to be to break-up with Spider-Man, to have small affairs with the other guys, and to get into trouble for Spider-man to rescue her once again- so that they could fall in love back again.

That said- Please do take your kids to the movie. I could hear the kids sitting around us in the theatre really enjoying the 3D. There are multiple scene were the camera just seem to jump with Spider-Man and the kids were loving it. Warning- There are two three kissing scenes though, and if you are a sort of parent who would like the kid not to see such scenes till he is 18- please take note.

Overall, a one time must watch for kids and a decent choice for a timepass film for adults. 3/5

And yes, the below remains the untold truth about the Spider-man series even now- :D http://youtu.be/v8K1TxDnczM

Edit: I hope the sequence shown after the credits section was purely just a trailer for the X-Men series, and they don't plan to make Spider-Man fight the X-Men in the next iteration.

Tokarev

There's a few actors who's movies have got to be watched.
Cage and Dicaprio are two of those.

The story is a very typical bollywood thing.
Reformed criminal, successful, daughter murdered, thinks past has caught up with him.

Well, for a nicaolas cage starrer, its unusual that you dont hear of his movie, but this one you didnt hear about for a good cause.
Its entirely avoidable.
But there is a twist at the end. So if your a hardcore fan, can catch it, else let it go.

2/5

This may sound stupid but I till now thought that the movie "The Girl with Dragon Tattoo" must be some fantasy movie with dragons et al like the Harry Potters and Lord of the Rings variety. However I chanced upon its review yesterday and looked interesting. So decided to give it a go and watched it last night.

While the 2011 Daniel Craig one does have a few holes/gap in the adaptation, overall liked the overall plot. And now I intend to watch the all the three parts of the Swedish versions.

Rating: 4/5 ( 2011 Version)

Quote:

Originally Posted by MileCruncher (Post 3429763)

I had watched ....dragon tattoo with expectations of some smart scenes or out of box story. Didn't fare well in my expectations. Plus, it was lengthy and boring too. Somehow the storyline and the relation to the dragon tattoo was not interesting to me.

With some courage I decided to watch the Swedish 'The Girl who played with fire', with subtitles. I almost choked to death.
I would recommend to skip it, or any of the squels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9 (Post 3429831)

I guess its an individual choice in cinema. However i understand the Swedish version is closer to the book. The third movie in the sequel actually answers all the questions that had remained unanswered over the series.

Btw the Millennium series byStieg Larssen has attrocities on women as the central theme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MileCruncher (Post 3429763)

And now I intend to watch the all the three parts of the Swedish versions.

Oh please do! The original Swedish series is a lot more darker, gorier and thrilling. We saw the first two back-to-back and the concluding part the next day. The final part was a bit boring compared to the first two but definitely watchable. Had no issues watching them with the hard-coded subtitles and listening to Swedish dialogues.

I am not into reading novels but a few friends highly recommended them. :)

Watched The Railway Man

This is a story of a Middle Aged ex World War 2 engineer who worked as POW on the Bridge built over river Kwai in Burma starring Colin Flirth & Nicole kidman. The movie is about his quest to meet his tormentor during his who also is alive to find a closure.

While the storyline is good the direction & screenplay are just ok. They have tried to dramtize few instances which do not gel with the flow. Apparently these were done to improve cinematic experience. The direction too was lacking as some scenes are not as convincing as they should be with the actors that they have.

A decent one time watch.

2.5/5

I saw 2 movies over the past 2 weeks and here are my views on it:

The Amazing Spider Man 2 (TASM 2) – 3D

Review: First a disclaimer that I have not seen TASM 1 – well I have seen bits of it on television but never the whole movie. Overall I found TASM 2 to be an average movie – just like Captain America and Avengers. I know all are different but they all evoked the same feeling for me. I think the movie could have been better but some of the story plots were not developed completely. I found the character of Electro to be abrupt – some more scenes on him would have been better. I mean his visual appearance was stunning but I just did not connect with his character like I did with Joker or Bane from Batman (Sorry – a Nolan fan here). Andrew Garfield was good and so was Emma Stone – the chemistry between them is really good on screen. I particularly liked the role of Harry although the Green Goblin was wasted in this movie – he hardly has 5-10 minutes of screen time I think.

The 3D was much better than Captain America – some of the scenes where the camera movies with Spiderman were really good. But I am still not a fan of 3D movies. Also I like Tobey Maguire to be better than Andrew as the Spiderman. Also the chemistry between Aunt May and Peter Parker is much better in the original series than the recent one.

I would definitely recommend watching this once – good enough content to kill time off.

Million Dollar Arm

Review: Good plot is the biggest requirement to a good movie – this movie proves that. The first time I looked at its trailer, I was super excited – A sports movie and that too based on a true story. However the movie did not turn out to be as good as I was expecting. The first half of the movie is better and builds the plot very well but the second half is pretty average. Casting is good and everyone played their roles very well. There is nothing wrong in the movie – all the scenes are good on a standalone basis but somehow the movie could have used more scenes on the sport itself – I guess the director did not want to add a lot of his own stuff in the movie and keep it as real as possible to the original tale on which it is based.

I would definitely recommend everyone to catch this movie – you will not regret it.