Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon
(2/5)Johnson Thomas Director and co-writer Eli Roth’s attempt to score with a ‘game’ franchise comes a cropper because his vision for the adaptation is sorely lacking in skill and imagination. Lilith (Cate Blanchett), the main heroine, is quick with a...
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Sunny Kaushal and Jimmy Sheirgill
(3/5)Nonika Singh Those like us who found ‘Haseen Dillruba’ not all that haseen don’t quite expect too much from its sequel. Yet, ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’ comes riding on an interesting new twist, and additions. To say that ‘Phir…’ is...
Cast: Janhvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah, Roshan Mathew, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang, Meiyang Chang, Rajendra Gupta and Jitendra Joshi
(2.5/5)Sheetal We’ve seen movies involving Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies, where things generally don’t end well for the ones on the evil side. But what happens when your protagonist is cooperating with the enemy? Director Sudhanshu Saria has made ‘Ulajh’...
Parbina Rashid Prabhas calls him a mad person. “He will beg, borrow, steal or even kill to get 100 per cent out of his actors,” NT Rama Rao Jr chips in. Grudgingly admiring words! Even his cousin, MM Keeravani, talks...
Johnson Thomas Manoj Night Shyamalan’s latest project, ‘Trap’, has him teaming up with Josh Hartnett, who happens to be on a comeback trail himself. This film is meant to be a white-knuckle suspense thriller laced with black comedy and it...
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Saiee Manjrekar, Shantanu Maheshwari and Jimmy Sheirgill
(2/5)Nonika Singh Tales of star-crossed lovers have given us many touching films. Add to it the deep shade of sacrifice as in yesteryear classics or modern-day ‘Raanjhanaa’, and there’s nothing better to tug at our heartstrings. As ‘Auron Mein Kahan...
Sheetal The Bhatt camp has produced the maximum number of horror films in Hindi cinema. Their last outing was with actress Avika Gor. Titled ‘1920: Horrors of the Heart’, it was headlined by debutant director Krishna Bhatt. It failed miserably...
Johnson Thomas This is a freaky yet breathtaking documentary about an acrobatic stunt couple ‘rooftopping’ through several countries around the world. It’s a strange trend no doubt, but these adrenaline junkies refer to it as high art. Angela Nikolau and...
Parbina Rashid Ian Fleming, who was part of Winston Churchill’s top-secret espionage operation during World War II, created James Bond and modelled him after Gus March-Phillipps, the man who led Operation Postmaster in 1942 against the Third Reich. In 2024,...
Nonika Singh X-men buffs know too well that Logan, aka Wolverine, died in the 2017 film ‘Logan’. So, how do you bring him back to life without ‘dishonouring his memory’? Heavy words for a ‘Deadpool’ film, which thrives on irreverent...
Sheetal Unlike what the title suggests, this film is nowhere near ‘Kota Factory’ and there is nothing educational about it. It is set in Noida, where, apparently, getting a pistol is a lot easier than borrowing money. And Tribhuvan Mishra...
Johnson Thomas The story is quite captivating despite hyperventilating over the grotesque and the incendiary. Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), an American nun of devout faith, is sent to a remote convent, aptly titled ‘My Lady of Sorrows’, in the picturesque Italian...
Parbina Rashid Spoiler alert! There is no cow flying in this one. Yes, the black and white (or, was it brown and white) bovine from ‘Twister’, which became a symbol of disaster movies, is missing in this standalone sequel of...
Nonika Singh It’s a strange, tangled love triangle and at one level, progressive too. A woman expecting twins by not one but two men is certainly a novel idea and out of the box, indeed. A sequel to the highly...
Sheetal There’s a reason Luv Ranjan’s love and break-up universe is received with open arms. It catches the pulse of modern-day relationships and friendships. But Ranjan-backed ‘Wild Wild Punjab’ takes a wild turn and steers away from its staple plot,...
Johnson Thomas Though a fresh romcom genre offering, ‘Fly Me to The Moon’ is not exactly a risible entertainer. The narrative is a bit confused about the tone it needs to stick to. There are bits of comedy, satire, drama...
Parbina Rashid Older, wiser, deadlier — that’s how fans of Indian, aka Senapathy, who is now teaching Indian martial arts in Taipei, perceives the erstwhile vigilante as they get ready to welcome him back after they find him through a...
Nonika Singh Behind every successful man, there is an obstacle race, endless challenges and, of course, steely grit and obsessive determination. Here there is a woman, too, but more on her later. As expected in a Bollywood film, ‘Sarfira’, an...
Sheetal This triple collaboration between producers Karan Johar and Guneet Monga and overseas distribution partners Lionsgate Studios is being marketed as the most violent film Bollywood has ever made. Starring known faces yet relatively new actors, Raghav Juyal, Lakshya...
Johnson Thomas Directed by Chris Renaud, with screenplay by Mike White and franchise stalwart Ken Daurio, ‘Despicable Me 4’ is not exactly a winning creative follow-up to this financially proficient series. The new setting, new villain and new characters, including...
Parbina Rashid In 2012, Ayushmann Khurrana’s debut film ‘Vicky Donor’ created quite a stir for its bold concept. Critics hailed director Shoojit Sircar for his ‘fertile’ imagination for touching a taboo subject like sperm donation. We loved serial sperm...
Nonika Singh As ‘Mirzapur’, one of India’s most successful franchises, moves into its third season, the delectable signature tune, one of the high points of the series, is the same. So is the signature touch. It’s still the killing...
It’s almost a decade on that the Jatt & Juliet franchise has been revived for the third outing, with Jagdeep Sidhu stepping up as writer and director. The film has a fresh perspective, but the same charm, and Diljit Dosanjh...
Sheetal Set in Rautu Ki Beli village in Uttarakhand, this detective noir film comes from ‘The Fakir of Venice’ director Anand Surapur. Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Inspector Deepak Negi, this would rate among his most subtle performances. Streaming on Zee5,...
Johnson Thomas Tahira Kashyap Khurrana’s debut directorial feature is a multi-generational ensemble about the modern, middle-class female experience. It focuses on the lives of urban girls/women with Sharma as their common surname. We get a fairly warm, tender dekko into...
Parbina Rashid Celine Dion made us believe in the ‘Power of Love’ when we were young (Jennifer Rush originally sang the song, but Dion owned it with her 1993 cover). Decades later, she makes us believe in the ‘power of...
Nonika Singh Many of us cinephiles have always believed that India’s answer to Hollywood’s ‘Avengers’ and Marvel Cinematic Universe lies in our layered and surrealistic mythology. Telugu director Nag Ashwin has not only managed to dig deep into our mythical...
Vikrant Parmar It’s a fight between good and evil — everyone knows who wins, right? In the Netflix movie Maharaj the course is the same, only the route full of potholes! But before that, why are the religious sentiments of...
Cast: Jessica Alba, Anthony Michael Hall, Mark Webber, Jake Weary, Tone Bell, Gabriel Basso, Kaiwi Lyman and Hari Dhillon
(1.5/5)Sheetal It’s about time the OTT platforms understood that labelling something as ‘Trigger Warning’, ‘Red Notice’, ‘The Gray Man’ or ‘Heart of Stone’ doesn’t guarantee success or likeability of some known actors, with an action background, as lead characters....
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce, Adrian Pasdar and Tracey Bonner
(2/5)Johnson Thomas This is a half-baked remake of William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’, in which Russell Crowe plays Anthony Miller, a washed-up actor and recovering alcoholic. He suddenly gets a lifeline when the original lead actor of a film that...
