A Dog's Purpose Review

Every dog has its day and also its story.

A Dog's Purpose Review – Woof woof woof awwwwwwwooooofffff (translation – a movie not to be missed by not just dog lovers but animal lovers as well.

Ethan and Bailey

Bailey Bailey Bailey is destined to be the greatest dog to ever exist as it goes thru several rebirths as the furry one to find its purpose in life. First as a litter of stray that gets put down even before having a chance to explore the world. Then come its most treasured reincarnation as Labrador. His rescuer, a boy named Ethan loves him to bits. Bailey gets to live a fulfilling life until its old age while watching Ethan grow into a young lad himself. Soon it was time for another cycle. With different role and gender as a female German Shepard Police Dog, preventing crime from happening to later as a cute Corgi to a shy collage girl. Still trying to find its purpose, Bailey returns one more time as a golden retriever, unfortunately his caretaker doesn’t care for him as well as his previous owners. Bailey gets dumped by the roadside as he wanders by himself until he reaches a familiar spot…will Bailey end up being a stray or can he finally find his purpose as a dog?

Tino the adorable Corgi! 

Get ready to shed a tear or two watching this pooch tugging your heartstrings. Yes people, I had some waterworks of myself but not all for unhappy reason. Some scenes were beautifully crafted to show that animals too know how to love. Despite the controversy surrounding this film earlier, there is a good lesson to be learned on how to treat another living being. The director managed to capture the film thru the dog’s point of voice while also giving the mutt is own ‘voice’ to interpret things the doggies way. As mentioned earlier, besides the snuffles you are bound to also laugh and smile as you go on an adventure. The timeline is well matched with the flow of the story wrapping up with a wonderful conclusion.

... is that you...Bailey?

If you ever had a pet or planning to get one anytime soon, do catch this movie to have an idea on how to share your life with a special friend. The unique bond you form with your pets will always remain in your heart even after their passing. It doesn’t have to be a dog or car per say but as long as you can provide a loving home, the fella will forever be grateful to have found a good friend in you. Now please excuse me while I go and ‘torture’ my fuzzy kitty cats. Meowwwwww

Hacksaw Ridge Review

Epic war flick!

Hacksaw Ridge Review – After previously being shunned for personal matters, Mel Gibson is back with what could be his magnum opus of a war film.

The Director and the cast sans their uniform

Please take note that this movie has a slow build up so you have to hang on till the combat scenes begin almost halfway thru. Once it does, be prepared to have your mind blown away as the soldiers get blown into pieces, burned, stabbed and what not. Mel Gibson holds no barrel to show how brutal wars can be. If you can’t stand the sight of blood, rats, maggots among others, you might want to stay away from this film but you will be missing out on one of the best war movie ever produced. The weight of the flick is carried well by Andrew Garfield. However despite what could be Andrew’s best acting todate, I still can’t accept him with his droopy eyes (I blame his Spidey reboot). Thankfully his supporting cast managed to also wow us in their respective roles. Without relying heavily on just the battle scenes, the film also managed to capture other aspects such as self-belief, love, relationship and compassion among others which is bound to touch your heart.

Mel the Redeemed.

Personally I was moved by Desmond Doss’s view about taking another person’s lives and wished more people would think like him. Sadly we all know it’s not likely to happen. While watching the movie I was impressed by the hard work put in by those involved to make film as successful as it is.  Yet I still can’t grasp the idea of war, humans fighting with one another, for what? Americans will certainly applaud this movie but can you imagine how the Japanese viewers might feel? The troops after all were in Japan, invading their country and attacking them in their homeland. Would you not fight for your country if it was attacked by foreign power? I know Japan did drop their bomb in Pearl Harbour but who used an atomic bomb not once but twice in the name of revenge? Think about it for a while will you? 

Hidden Figures Review

Make way for the ladies...

Hidden Figures Review – Another Hollywood’s ‘tribute’ (Read : guilt trip) to the unsung ‘black people’ behind their most successful space programme.

Winner no matter with Oscar or n

This is a real life story of the ‘coloured peoples’ struggle during the 1960’s to survive in the ‘white people’ dominated space programme despite possessing the smarts and talents to contribute. Three (3) such gifted ladies are Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). They are faced with daily challenges to prove their worth and things get heated following a successful Russian satellite launch. Pressure mounts for NASA to win the space race by sending an astronaut to circle around the Earth. Despite often getting marginalised, Katherine, Dorothy and Mary strive and do the best they could. Slowly but surely the perception and reception towards the ‘coloured people’ at the said space agency changes when Dorothy figures out the way to work the latest IBM computer and eventually getting promoted as a Supervisor and Mary wins her application to study at an all-white night school to become an engineer while Katherine almost single-handedly saves a launch by solving complicated mathematical calculation.

Welcome back to the big screen Mr. Costne

First thing first…the great casting of Taraji, Octavia and Janelle is a powerful selection to portray their respective roles. Add Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons to the mix as the sceptical white supervisors managed to depict the tensions among the coloured and white people perfectly. Some of the scenes will tug your heart knowing these ladies faced such discrimination day in day out even after proving their value to the company. It’s hard to believe such situation used to occur before but then it is also happening now despite the world moving away from racial discrimination. Although this film is filled with loads of mechanical and mathematical jargon, I was captured by the interesting way it was directed. I can’t find any fault in this film just like how Katherine can make no mistake in her calculation.

Hidden Figures no more

Hidden Figures is still relevant till day because there are still people out there faced with perception and judged by the colour of their skin instead of being appreciated for their ability. Hidden Figures is a reminder for us to keep our minds open and accept the fact that everybody deserves a chance to do their best for greater good of the human species.  

The Lego Batman Movie Review

Batman Lego-rized!!!

The Lego Batman Movie Review – After the success of The Lego Movie in 2014, it’s only fair that Batman who stole some of the scenes in the previous flick gets to have his own version of lego movie/story.

The Dark Kight

We all know the story of Batman (voiced by Will Arnett), the rich orphan who decides to fight crime in Gotham City. His only ‘friend’ is his loyal butler, Alfred (voiced by Voldemort…I mean Ralph Fiennes). Batman’s nemesis, The Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) takes it personal when Batman says that they don’t have a ‘special hero-villain relationship’. The Joker hatch a plan to combine the strength of all well-known villains, namely, Sauron, Bane, King Kong, Voldermort and even Velociraptors in order to get back at Batman and destroy Gotham City in the process,  Meanwhile Batman has to decided once and for all if he could actually form any type of relationship with others by taking in help from the new Police Commissioner, Barbra Gordon (Rosario Dawson) along with his adopted son, Dick aka Robin (Michael Cera). Who will prevail? Can Batman save the day once again or The Joker finally gets his wish to annihilate Gotham City?

Bat family. 

Strap on to your seat and enjoy the Batmobile ride from the start. This is spin off is another winner bursting with entertaining animation capturing the essence of Lego matched by smart puns by even taking a dig at Batman’s own history. The voice talents are nothing short of perfection matching their roles splendidly. Not just made to be enjoyable, there also some lessons to be learned about family values and along with bonding of friendship.

Bat Power!!!!

The wait for this version was totally worth the time with improvised storyline and inclusion of more interesting characters, you will find yourself looking forward to the next instalment, which is Lego Ninjago! Excited yet, because I know I am!

Kaabil Review

Love at first sight. 

Kaabil Review- It's only January and I'm already into my 2nd Hindi movie after Dangal. Yes…even I’m surprised at this fact!

They maybe blind, but they are happy. 

Rohan (Hrithik Roshan) leads a normal life working as a voice over artist despite being blind until he ‘meets’ another blind independent girl, Supriya (Yami Gautam) who is a musician. Hesitant at first, they finally fall in love and get married. Just as the couple start their happy live together, tragedy strikes when Su is raped by Wasim (Sahidur Rahman) and Amit (Rohit Roy), brother of local politician, Shellar (Ronit Roy). With Shellar’s political influence, Amit managed to avoid from getting punished for his action. Failing to repent, Amit once again rapes Su and this time she commits suicide once witnessing Rohan’s agony after the first incident. Rohan’s world is completely shattered as the law fails to protect him and his wife while blaming the whole incident as a sham. Rohan then decides to take action by himself baiting Amit and those involved to avenge the tragic death of his beloved wife.  

....so in love with each other.

After witnessing the great Aamir Khan in Dangal, I didn’t expect much from Hrithik because I’m not really a fan of his movies, in fact this is my first Hrithik cinema experience. He however didn’t disappoint me with his quite powerful performance. My one problem was his over-enhanced expression to ‘look’ blind that was kinda over-whelming during some scenes. His other half in the movie portrayed her disability is much better way. I also had trouble with the way Rohan reacted towards his wife after rape incident, ignoring the traumatised wife and going on about with his usual routine only to apologise later which proved to be grave mistake. Perhaps if he had talked to her earlier about his feelings, things might have turned out differently but the Director needed a story so perhaps they made it such way to accommodate the storyline. If that’s the case, Bollywood movies still got a long way to go to change the mind-set of its audience. Some of things that happen in this film is only possible in the silver screen and not real life and hopefully real victims, blind or otherwise will be treated fairly instead of being accused of lying. I’m not totally against this flick but just saying it could have been so much better if reality based measures are taken instead of indulging in a fantasy actions.

Don't mess with this blind man. 

Overall it was entertaining but just didn’t make the cut to be a favourite repeat watch. 

Split Review

Are you ready for this? 

Split Review – Dear M. Knight Shyamalan, you will never get another better actor than James McAvoy (no disrespect to Bruce and Samuel) so don’t give us another stinker please.

Why hello there Miss Patricia. 

Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) develops a condition referred as dissociative identity disorder due to his abusive childhood which forms at least twenty three (23) different personalities ‘inside’ him. Despite his unique situation, Kevin can function properly with a steady job while also consulting with a psychiatrist, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Better Buckley). Unfortunately one of his ‘personality’, Dennis decides to kidnap three (3) teenage girls to ‘punish’ them for their impurity. Soon we get to witness ‘other’ characters show themselves much to the confusion of his kidnap victims. In the meantime, Dr. Fletcher sensing something is wrong drops by Kevin’s place only to realize her worst suspicion was right all along. What will befall his poor kidnapped teens and can Dr. Fletcher save Kevin before his 24^th ‘individuality’ known as The Beast appears?     

Hey Hedwig. 

Proving he can be more than Professor X in the X-man series, James McAvoy carries the whole movie on his own with his amazing talent. His switch from one personality to another is flawless and during one particular tense scene he character swap was simply breath-taking. From the talking, walking, body language to even dressing, he managed to capture different behaviours perfectly. My offer to enhance the realism of the roles would be giving him hair instead of going bald which would have added extra umph to the portrayed alter egos. The movement of the story however did feel rather dragged at some points and the greedy part in me wanted to ‘see’ all of his separate individuals ‘take the light’ instead of focusing too much only on certain personality. Perhaps Knight was building a story to make a sequel if this release becomes fruitful. He also managed to tie in with one of previous work by throwing in his usual twist right at the end of this movie.  

Guess who is here to meet you. 

Overall it’s a pretty decent attempt by Knight to be relevant in the movie making business again. Let’s hope that he doesn’t fumble after making this proper comeback (sorta).

La La Land Review

Gear up your dancing feet for this.

La La Land Review – A rare musical jewel is here to rescue us from the sea of superhero flicks.

Jump if you have watched La La Land. 

Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress working at a coffee shop to pay the bills who stumbles upon Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a struggling jazz pianist. They strike an unlikely friendship that turns them into lovers. Slowly but surely both finally find their footing in their respective field but this cause them to drift further apart from each other. With more fame and fortune come knocking at their door, can these two love birds stay together or leave their love on the backseat?

Will Mia and Seb only have eyes for each other by the end of La La Land?

Coming from the same Director that gave us the Oscar nominated Whiplash not long ago, we are once again offered another masterpiece of mixing story-telling with amazing music. The tunes are very ear friendly that you will find yourself humming and moving your feet to it in no time. It creates the good old days pleasant melodies while also capturing the current music trend in its arrangement. The camera work is another splendid feature moving flawlessly as if it is also dancing to its own steps. Of cause all this is made possible by the pairing of quirky Emma and dashing Ryan. Teaming up for the third time in a movie, this might be their own personal achievement to graduate from Superbad and Mickey Mouse Club respectively. This film will definitely take them to greater heights that they rightfully deserve. A simple story told in a whimsical way is sure to score big at the box office whilst having already collected heaps of awards so far. La La Land will surely become one of the classic treasure for Hollywood to enjoy for years to come.

The perfect couple? 

Drop your comic book and grab your seat for this delightful (although not all the way) silver screen gem.

Allied Review

Spy -vs- spy

Allied Review – Yes…that movie where Brat and Marion (allegedly) hooked up!

The happy couple? 

French-Canadian Wing Commander Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) arrives in Casablanca during the World War II circa 1942 and pretends to be French agent, Marianne Beausejour’s (Marion Cotillard) husband until they escape from the Nazis. Pretty soon they fall in love for real and Max decides marry her and live in London. They start a family together until Max’s superior delivers a shocking revelation about his wife. Left with no option, Max takes matters into his own hands to prove his wife’s innocence but is Marianne really who she says she is or has she been lying to Max all this while?

We have a surprise for you Max!!!

I shall start with the positives, the cinematography is simply breath-taking capturing the exotic and modern landscapes beautifully. The antic cars, fighter planes and costumes are carefully picked to match the timeline of the movie. The storyline that touches the emotion between having to choose between your loyalty towards your country or love for your wife/family. Marion easily takes the cake with her eloquent banter in French/English, her elegance and demure personality. No wonder Brat (allegedly) fell for her. Sadly, the same can’t be said about Brat as he seems a bit ‘old’ to be matched with Marion. Even his acting seemed a little wooden in comparison to his partner. This made the scenes between him and Marion lack the spark that he natural had with his now X-wife, Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Can they live happily ever after?

Sadly this wonderful movie received some serious flack due to the rumour of Brad leaving Angie after hooking up with Marion which is waste because the work done was truly marvellous. Let’s hope that Brad will soon learn his lesson and stop making the same mistake of falling for his co-stars in the future (hopefully).