Kites (2010)

Kites is directed by Anurag Basu, produced by Rakesh Roshan & stars Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranaut, and Kabir Bedi amongst others. Story by Rakesh Roshan, Screenplay by Anurag Basu, Robin Bhatt and Akarsh Khurana, Music by Rajesh Roshan, Cinematography by Ayananka Bose.

My review is for the 130 minute Indian version. For your info, next week a 90 minute international remix version of Kites is going to be released which was re-edited under the supervision of Brett Ratner (director of Rush Hour series and X-Men:The Last Stand).  

Some of the reactions that I observed in the theater. At the 80 minute mark, the person adjacent to me is whispering in a tired voice "Oh my God! how much more time is the movie going to last?" At the end of the movie, I saw a group of friends waking one of their friends. There are uniform sighs of disappointment from the audience by the time end credits started rolling. You may guess now in which direction this review is going to be.

I saw the trailer of Kites a couple of months ago and was not at all impressed by it. So I went to the screening with a bit of low expectations. But the movie was worse than my already lower expectations.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

The movie is written by Justin Theroux who previously cowrote that fantastic comedy Tropic Thunder. Director of the movie is Jon Favreau who also acted in the movie as Tony Stark's bodyguard.

The trailer first. The beauty or the not so beauty thing about this trailer is that you can get a really good idea of almost all of the plot points of the movie in this.

Not difficult to guess the best part of the movie. Sometimes you feel that a particular role was destined to be played by a particular person. You can't seperate the role and the person. Robert Downey, Jr. is Tony Stark. He is so convincing that if not for the backlash of the fans you may very well change the name of Tony Stark to Robert Downey, Jr. He is absolutely enjoying this role and it shows on the screen. Also Mickey Rourke is an excellent casting choice for Ivan Vanko / Whiplash. He is really cool. I read that it was Downey who initially proposed Rourke's name for Whiplash.

Män som hatar kvinnor / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Verdict:  9/10

The movie has some nudity & violence.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" directed by Niels Arden Oplev, is adopted from the 1st book of the hugely popular "Millennium Trilogy" series written by Stieg Larsson. Spare a thought for Larsson because he died before any of the trilogy books were published. The movie is the biggest ever Scandinavian movie & the highest grossing movie of Europe in 2009. There are 2 more sequels to this film which have been already released in Sweden & will be released in U.S in the coming months. I didn't read the novel but as the movie is gradually unfolding, you can actually feel like reading the book. The literal translation of the swedish title is Men who hate Women.

Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) is a retired former head of a business empire as well as the head of a big dynasty. 40 years ago his niece Harriet has disappeared & her body was never found. Henrik, for whom Harriet is like a daughter, is convinced that she is murdered by some one from his own family & he employs a tainted journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to find the murderer. Mikael gets an unlikely partner in the form of the antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) who is fighting some demons from her own past. They form an unlikely detective pair & together they must find the murderer before they themselves became the target.

Gin gwai 2 / The Eye 2 (2004)

Verdict:  6/10

It was 1 a.m. My roommate was already sleeping. No disturbances. I closed the windows & it was my perfect setting for watching a horror flick. The downside of loving & watching too many horror thrillers is that nowadays unless I have the above said perfect conditions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get my thrills.

An important observation regarding the title is that there is absolutely no relation between the movie & the title. I felt cheated because going by the title, I thought this movie has some connection with Gin gwai/The Eye which was one of my favourite movies. Since the first movie was a hit, just to cash on the success, the directors Pang Brothers named this movie as a sequel but the story is completely new one. As the story isn't bad at all, they should have kept an independent tile. The second thing which I hated immensely was the background score in the 1st half. Random usage of heavy music was actually distracting although in the 2nd half the situation improved. As a whole I would say job not well done as far as background score was considered.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Verdict:  6/10

Jennifer's Body is directed by Karyn Kusama & written by Oscar winning Screenwriter Diablo Cody. Cody won the Oscar for one of my favourites Juno. The movie stars Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried in the lead roles. Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, J.K.Simmons among others are in the supporting roles.


The movie is a comedy thriller set in the high school background. Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) is the high school hottie who although behaves very confident from outside, is actually a very insecure person. Her best friend from childhood is Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) who is the quintessential gawky, nerdy student typically present in every high school movie. One day Jennifer takes Needy to a rock show by a minor band. After a big fire accident, the rock band under the impression that Jennifer is a virgin takes her with them, offers her as a sacrifice to Satan in exchange for fame & money.