KillerLord

When the announcement was made on the Internet that a movie was going to be made based on the superb and incredibly well done game called Prince of Persia - Sands of Time, it was also announced that none other than Jordan Mechner was roped in to write the script and screenplay. Jordan Mechner is, for those who are not too sure, the inventor of the concept of Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia is a game franchise that started out with the DOS based 1989 version. A couple of years later, another very beautifully designed game called the "The Shadow and the Flame" was released. Several years later, when gaming technology had reached a whole new level, Ubisoft joined Mechner and rebooted the series with game of the same name. This game was a hit and received critical acclaim.

Now, the Sands of Time was followed by Warrior Within. Mind you, without Jordan Mechner in the team this time around! This second game was criticized for 1) Being too violent and containing mature material 2) Being opposite in its mood compared to the first game. I never understood this criticism except maybe the first one. The game was no longer meant for the younger audience. But the theme of the game demands it. If you want to show a man face to face with death, would you be a cheerful guy who makes jokes and sees the funny side of the story? Or would you elevate yourself to be a hard-hearted man who wants to change his destiny? Why am I typing all this? One point - this game was good in my opinion and I don't care what the critics say. Then comes the third part and this time Mechner is back. And let me tell you - he brought the cheesy romance back with him.

Jordan Mechner declared about Warrior Within, "I'm not a fan of the artistic direction, or the violence that earned it an M rating. The story, character, dialog, voice acting, and visual style were not to my taste." Your taste? If part three is what you taste is like, it means what you like is precisely what many gamers do not like (about The Two Thrones, the third installment) - 1) Pre-programmed fight sequences 2) Cheesy romantic dialogs between male and female leads while the world is ending 3) Completely linear game flow and other issues.

You can get away with enforcing your taste, maybe in the world of video games but you can't do that in a movie. You have to make the audience (and critics) believe and get involved in the story. You like a couple to have love-like-tension in the middle of the desert faced with danger, not many digest that these days. Why Jordan Mechner? Why can't you keep your taste aside for a moment and understand that you are making a movie about a Persian warrior who holds the key to saving the world in his hand? Why don't you understand that in a movie you need to convince people what is happening? What I did not like about the movie and I believe I must blame the director and the writer for it is this - the comfort a man and a woman can seek from each other when they are faced with the grave danger they are faced is definitely not the cheesy kind of love tension shown in this movie. And, a movie based on sword fighting game not having one clear shot of a sword fight. Yes, those typical shaky cam like sequences where only at the end of the fight you realize who hit whom with what. Humor is good but not when it takes away all the tension the danger is suppose to cause. In other words, the humor in this movie is weird and improperly placed.

What I did like about the movie is the desert landscape and the city they "made" in which the story is set. That is a job well done indeed. I have no problem with the cast as well. I am positive that the cast is talented indeed but of what use is the talent without the two important people who do the direction and the writing part? The story was suitably modified by Mechner for a movie but the script is not satisfying at all. Mechner should understand that the audience today has grown. If the thinks he can still fascinate an audience with a script that worked in 1989, sorry, that is not going to work today. Any seasoned movie watcher will realize that this movie had a lot of potential with the right tweaks in the direction and script.

The CGI is really well done. They could have easily shown some impressive sword fighting with subtle slow motion sword shots but they choose an option which seems to be gaining increasing favor in the last couple of years i.e. the rapid shaky cam approach. But still, okay, the CGI is really well done. Kudos to the CGI team. Whoever designed the sets of the movie, kudos to you too. That too is a job well done. Costumes seemed okay. I am not in a position to comment on the cultural accuracy of the costume but for a fiction history, I don't think I am too bothered with that intricate detail (as long as Persian warriors don't wear Rolex watches).

Overall, this movie is watchable. But this movie had so much in it to make it really big. I give it a 6 - an enjoyable experience with no moments to remember for a long time. Thanks.

Each and every person I speak to about this movie turns out to be someone who has had the time to read the novel by Dan Brown of the same name on which this movie is based. And each person gives a report about the movie and at the end of it says only one thing - "The novel is far better." And before I say anything about the movie, there is this comment that I would like to make about the people who, not only about this movie but also about other movies based on popular novels, have to say - "The novel is much better." Once in our Science class we were cheerfully told not to add buffaloes to sheep. (To illustrate a concept called dimensional analysis.) The relevance here is that it is very unfair to any movie to keep uplifting the novel and lower the level of appreciation for a movie.

How do you compare the two media? One medium has the luxury of spreading all that there is to know across 600 pages and maybe even more of pages that are printed in small font-size. This same medium has the luxury of spending as much time as possible to develop the characters and give them dimensions that the readers can identify with. If the author decides to introduce something bordering on being crap, he has all the pages in the world pouring out necessary text to make it sound convincing to the common reader. What can a movie do? Each second of a movie has some thousand dollars of expenditure behind it. The length has to be limited. What will a movie maker do? He cannot deliver your novel on the screen word-to-word. I do not believe in the comparison. It is lame and meaningless to me and hence I do not like to hear the phrase - "The novel is better." Yes, it is lame for me to hear text and reader imagination being compared to the difficulty of direction, scripting, visual effects, sound, etc. working to in sync to tell a story.

Now, coming to the movie Angels and Demons, it obviously changes the story so that it may fit into the time limits of a movie. I ask the question - "Is there anything believable about the plot of the movie?" No. There is hardly anything that is quite believable. But does that make it a bad movie? The answer is again a no. Surprisingly, in spite of sheer lack of believability this movie entertains and excites. And especially for the person who has not had the chance to see the Vatican, gives a wonderful tour of the city. The photography is damn amazing. It gives a wonderful portrayal of a city filled with beautiful structures that are symbols of the vast history of that land.

Tom Hanks' character has not great dimensions to it. There really was no challenge for an actor of his caliber in the movie. After all the hard work and concentration he had to do in all his other movies, here is a role that really did not demand the actor to use his skills to the fullest. He probably did it because he enjoyed playing the role in The Da Vinci Code. The other members of the cast do their jobs well. There are some short comings in the script time to time where things get a little too absurd but the movie pulls on somehow.

The sheer speed of the story is too much. And it is this speed that takes out a lot of believability from the movie. But then, there are so many other movies that break this law by showing a race against time. So, why condemn this one? Just because it is based on a popular book that seems to have too many hardcore fans? Don't get me wrong! All I am trying to say is the the movie does a good job in giving you an overall idea of the plot. Sure, it may not develop its characters for that would compromise on the excitement and urgency of the situation. But what about the photography? The Sound? The effects? They are all well done.

On a personal level, I myself would love to see a lot of changes to the movie perhaps to make the plot more real. But then the movie would contend to satisfy critics and loses its viewers. Overall, a good watch!

Finally, an X-Men movie without the Cerebro! Yes, this time, the director changed hands and he probably wondered to himself as to what he should do in this one. Brett Ratner definitely shows us that he can completely exploit the powers of the mutants to create an epic action movie. And boy oh boy, is Brett Ratner completely ruthless. He just does not care who dies in this one. For a change, we have a director who says that power in abundance is a power waiting to be heavily misused as history has always shown us. And this is what happens.

Jean Grey returns in this installment but she is not the same anymore. She is now revealed to have dual form, the other one being Phoenix whose psychic powers can even rival those of Xavier and the worst part is that she does not have the one thing that power demands - control. And in a roll of fury, she destroys Xavier! So, Ratner destroys the most cool, composed character in the movie - Xavier. And now, when you begin to wonder that this should be something that Magneto is happy about, he is not. Ratner brings out a wonderful respect that Magneto always had for Xavier despite the bitter differences in their approach towards mutant rights and similar issues.

The movie's central plot is about a certain drug that is developed using a gifted mutant. The drug is able to convert a mutant into a normal human being without all those wonderful powers. And needless to say, Magneto does not like it one bit and thus builds an army with the aim to destroy the lab where the drug is being developed and synthesized.

And just like Ratner adopts a destructive path, I will in some sense destroy this movie in the comment by telling the all out destruction that Ratner does indeed cause in this movie. He ends the life of Cyclops. Mystique loses all her powers! The character who already died in X-2 dies again. And the two main masters of all mutants - both die! So, there is a hell lot of destruction in this movie. Lots of humans and mutants die! And I thought about it for sometime and realized that with so much power scattered around the world, the amount of destruction we saw in the previous two movies was quite less. So, I guess I am with Brett Ratner is his approach that if there is so much extraordinary power scattered all across the planet and the people who are possessing it are being abused, there is only one thing that is going to happen - heavy destruction.

And heavy destruction is the one thing that this movie shows - an all out classic action. And the shades Ratner brings to the movie are amazing. A must-watch.

I was not at all happy with the slowness and dullness of the first installment of the X-Men. And I had compared it with Superman Returns and concluded that perhaps slow was how Singer did his work. At least, to me. I had argued that one does not need to make a story too strong if he can give some breathtaking sequences that leave us spell-bound which too were quite absent in the first installment. It is almost as if Brian Singer was aware of these and decided to correct them in the second installment.

As far as the story is concerned, there is still no significant change. The story has not much of a higher dimension but I never felt the absence of this since the action was just too well done in the movie. There are some really amazing and breathtaking sequences throughout the movie. The action unfolds very smoothly and the places and action are so believable in the sense that there is no cartoon-like touch to it. A very strong job done by the CGI people.

The movie is filled with newer kinds of X-Men with better and unique abilities setting the stage for some fantastic battles. And the best part is that we have some shades in the characters now that make us identify with them. The character of Wolverine is better developed and makes us wonder about him. Xavier wins our respect with his silent and spiritual way of looking at the world. Surprise! The presence of mutual respect between Magneto and Xavier also wins us over! It is just too well exhibited. Overall, there are shades of emotions in the character that make them involving.

Overall, this movie is a much better package than its predecessor which was quite devoid of proper emotions, character stress and development and for that matter - stunning action. This movie takes the standards way ahead and is just a good package.

Deborah Kerr stars as a governess to two strange children Flora and Miles in this film 'The Innocents'. The movie is based on the novel 'The Turn of the Screw'. The same novel was also adapted into a movie called 'In a Dark Place.' I unfortunately ended up seeing the latter movie first for I believe it is a really bad movie directed without much skill and a total waste of time. My major complaint with the movie was the way in which the disturbed mental state of the lead character was handled.

But wind the clock back to 1961 and see this movie - 'The Innocents' and you will find Deborah Kerr giving the right performance. Her performance along with the brilliant performance of the child actors sets up the story in a much more clear and precise fashion. And while the puzzle in modern day version as to what exactly happened is not a proper puzzle, the puzzle is presented in a much clearer fashion in this movie.

I guess a major strength of this movie is that it was made during a period where there were no CGIs available and the directors had to use all their brains to create the fear using both sound and camera. The movie moves very smoothly giving you the goosebumps and handling the sex part of it without any boldness and yet using effective dialog to convey the same.

It is one of those movies that leave the viewer at the end to form his or her own interpretation as to what exactly happened. And the way the screenplay has been written, one can present some arguments in favor of the supernatural and one may also argue that if there is anything supernatural, it is the ability of the mind to see what it wants to see. A wonderful movie, a must watch for those that enjoy psychological thrillers.

For long time, Basic Instinct and Sliver were two movies that I avoided watching. The general talk around me about these two movies was that both starred Sharon Stone and the primary theme of the movie was sex. But somewhere as time passed, I ended up giving the movie "Basic Instinct" a try and realized that in spite of being loaded with steamy sex scenes, the movie still had a story and some substance. There was indeed a lot of confusion throughout the movie which makes you wonder what happens next and maybe lay down a bet to predict the end of the movie. What I am trying to say is that, the movie is enjoyable, not for the sex but more so for the story and the element of thrill.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about this movie "Sliver", which I ended up watching in the hope that maybe people were wrong (as in case of Basic Instinct) that this movie was just sex. And yes, because the story is hardly gripping, the movie does end up being a movie which is all about sex. I was severely disappointed with this movie. The story line did not impress me much and Sharon Stone's character was annoying to say the least. Hardly anything in her character that you can like or sympathize. Nothing! Very shallow! The movie centers around an apartment owned by a pervert with money enough to wire the whole apartment with cameras so that he can watch everyone doing anything and I mean it - anything. The story (if there is something called a story) is lame. It follows how Sharon's character eventually finds this out and how she deals with this discovery and blah blah blah! A very predictable end once you are through to the last forty minutes of the movie. Of course, that does not mean, the earlier part is interesting. It is just a pervert's dream come true and nothing else.

All and all, I can say that this is one of the movies you can safely avoid. Even a bad movie, I say to people, go and watch so that you know it is bad. But here is a movie, I can say, there is no need to even watch. You will not be missing anything. And if you are Sharon Stone's fans, well, I don't know what to say. I guess there is nothing much I can say.

Overall, disappointing.

Novels are best made into movies when you follow them as sincerely as possible. Of course, one can never follow a novel completely since what can be conveyed to the minutest detail in a 600 page novel definitely cannot be packed in a two hour movie. But still, when you do not miss out the essential aspects of the movie, only then can you satisfy those who have read the novel. Coma is one of the fine examples of how a movie can be made out of a good novel.

Coma is based on the novel of the same name by Robin Cook. Robin Cook, being a man of medicine himself is able to present to us with great amount of realism as to how the profession of medicine can be used for commercial selfish gains. Most of his novels are set in a premise where the men of medicine are misusing their powers in order to gain wealth. The story of Coma is about a hospital where something suspicious is going on, as discovered by our lead character – Dr. Susan Wheeler.

The movie then shows how her suspicions prove to be right but she gradually discovers the complexity of the plot and is then faced with a dilemma as to who can be trusted and who cannot be trusted. The best part of the movie, as is the best part of the novel is that it works in a smooth flow and makes us believe that what is being depicted is a surreal possibility and who knows – somewhere in world, it just might be the truth.

For a movie that is made in 1976, the direction, screening and scripting is simply beautiful. It keeps us on the edge of our seats and gives our gray cells plenty of exercise as they try and anticipate as to what is going to happen next. The whole cast does a wonderful job in creating a movie that will for me remain one of the most defining movies in the genre best described as "medical thrillers'.

The first superhero movie by Bryan Singer that I saw was Superman Returns and I knew at once that here was a director that had all the art to make a good artistic movie but just could not deliver too well on the action front. Superman Returns had some really neat and nice effects but the movie just moved too slow to leave a lasting impression on me. Same I found with X-Men (which I repeat I saw after I saw Superman Returns).

The movie of X-Men just fails to weave all the pieces together. It is about a group of mutants divided into two sections. One led by a good man named Xavier, a psychic who believes that the powers of the mutants can be used for the good of the mankind and the other section led by Magneto, a man who believes in condemning humans. And needless to say, the movie is all about how the bad guys scheme in order to get their work done and somehow the good guys managed to prevent them. And no points for guessing - no prominent good guy dies in the end.

The special effects are decent. But I always believed that there is nothing in this world that can substitute a good old close-up fight. CGI rarely manages to give you the impact that a good-old staged fight can give you. The best example is the comparison of fight between Jackie Chan's CGI based "The Medallion" and the older movies of Chan where he does everything for real. None of the fights were truly enjoyable to me. And I also do not believe that it is the fact that the fighters are not humans that ticked me off. Because even in the Matrix trilogy, the fighters were superhuman but the movie makers managed to add some believable aspect to the movie.

Maybe, just maybe, it is possible that for someone who has read the original X-Men comic books by Marvel might like the movie for it gives them a chance to see their comic book characters come alive but for someone like me who wants the story told from scratch, I do not see anything great in this movie. The cast is good but the movie is either too short for all of them or maybe too dumb, I am again not sure of that.

To briefly summarize what I felt about the movie is that it fails to impress. There is no character you can sympathize with. There is no character whose profile you can construct at the end of movie simply because the movie does not spend any amount of time telling you about anyone. Anyone watching the movie can easily guess that there has to be a sequel and two more sequels have been released. How they score, I do not know but I am going to get right to seeing the second and third installments of the movies to see if Bryan has been able to do something good to them.

The movie Taken is about a retired spy Brian played by Liam Neeson. The plot of the movie is pretty straightforward. So, if you are watching this movie to see something fresh, I am afraid that the only thing fresh that you are going to see in this movie are the faces. Yes, it is like an old story in perhaps a different location, with a different cast and a slightly different way of looking at things. Brian is a retired spy who used to protect the country from international enemies by doing certain operations and so on. The cost that he has had to pay in order to do this job is that he has not been able to spend time with his family and is estranged from his daughter. He is now retired in hopes of making up for the lost time. Time and now of course he does security provision assignments for local concerts and shows.

One fine day, the daughter chooses to go to Paris and since she is a minor she needs her father's permission. Having seen the world, Daddy is all too concerned but finally lets go. And as any seasoned movie goer can guess even though he might know nothing about the plot of the movie, he can guess that something is about to happen to the daughter. And it does! No points for guessing that! She gets kidnapped conveniently letting her father listen to the voice of the kidnapper since the kidnapping happens while she talks to her father! And in then we see non-realism at its best. He guesses the kidnapper, his origin, his possible hideouts and regions of operation. He goes to Paris, he kicks ass and he tracks down the guys and gets back his daughter. Plenty of gun action. And it is pretty straight. The spies are suppose to be good with guns. But how good are they with their hands? My god! They move so fast that the cameramen cannot capture a single punch on the screen. For those who might have accidentally read my one or two other reviews, I have always been someone who complained about the camera being moved too fast to capture a punch. I hate such photography. I want to see a punch delivered, I want to feel for a moment the strength of the hero as he lands a punch on his opponent. This movie denied me that.

The action flows smoothly in the movie. The direction is about okay. The movie is never realistic. A major complaint I have about the movie is that I do not feel any love between the father and the daughter. Of course they are supposed to be estranged but still overall on the emotional front, there is nothing much that the movie delivers. It is a pure action movie and it portrays action at the cost of everything else - including realism and emotion. The only emotion that finds strength is the brutal anger of the hero as he unleashes hell on the streets of Paris.

Overall, a mindless flick worth watching if an escape from reality is what you are looking for!

I have absolutely no idea about the original novel based on which the movie has been produced. But I can assure you that this movie independent of the work on which it has been based is a pathetically directed and scripted one. The topic under consideration is a complicated one and requires the primary cast and crew to be matured and precise about psychological responses of people under varied circumstances. The movie is a horror movie and yet there are psychological elements involved in it. The biggest failure of the movie is that it fails to do a good job in both the elements.

When I am seeing a horror movie, I am ready to fore go some elements that make good cinema provided that I do really enjoy the goosebumps the movie has to throw at me. Do I really get scared when I see this movie? The answer is a plain and a simple "no". Because the visual effects are simply too lame. One does not really need a great animation studio to get the effects right. It takes sheer brilliance on part of the director to get things done right. A simple evidence of this is that we have really scary movies when there was nothing called computer animation! And that brilliance is completely lacking on part of the crew of the movie and we do not get goosebumps at all except maybe on one or two occasions.

The movie is to end without any proper conclusion. It is one of those kind of movies which tell you two parallel possibilities and then leave you to decide for yourself what you want to think about the conclusion of the movie. Such movies are not bad provided that both the parallels are strongly motivating. This movie does not really do a good job in this department and at the end all we are left with is an ending that just does not excite you, enthrall you and to make matters worse, it leaves you completely dejected and heartbroken for having wasted your time on it.

The central character of the movie is a disturbed character. She has been sexually assaulted back in childhood and one of the explorations of the movie is how such a person can pass on the pain to others. But the overall lack of skill on the part of the actress, the script and the failure of the director to hold it all together destroy this element of the movie and we find nothing convincing at the end of the movie. A movie can always end with a twist but it should be so strong that people are left with a feeling of "Wow" at the end of it. Nothing like that happens in this movie. It is disappointing right from the very beginning.

When you see certain movies like Rambo, Commando or Predator, you see a warrior going out in the jungles and taking the whole enemy army down single handed! The truth is that while such movies are good in their own right because they allow you to escape into a world of fantasy, the movies are misleading because war is nothing like what is shown in them. You do not survive a war because you have muscles which you can flex. You do not survive a war because you are more skilled than the other. Those are the days of ancient warfare when you would fight with swords. But modern warfare is all about luck. You survive only if you are lucky that of all the thousands of bullets and debris flying around, not one strikes you or even if it does, it strikes you in a way that it does not kill you. Nobody goes into a war without fear. Nobody remembers a country when fighting a war. All that matters is survival - survival at all costs. And that is the true picture of war that Saving Private Ryan manages to show so beautifully.

The movie opens with a very brutal war sequence based on the Ohama beach war. It is difficult to imagine how the movie makers managed to plan the filming of this entire sequence. It is so realistic and will forever dispel the notions of any exuberant youth who thinks that war is glamorous. There is nothing glamorous about war and there never ever will be. I have heard rumors from my friends that some people vomited in the cinema hall due the extent of violence portrayed in this movie. And so I must warn you that if you are someone who is easily affected by blood and gore, pray do not watch this movie or at least this sequence.

Spielberg along with the rest of the crew does a stupendous and a beautiful job of showing a rescue mission that leads the leading group into the heart of war to rescue one man - Private Ryan who has already lost three of his brothers to the World War operations. An order has come in from top authorities to extradite the last of the four brothers. How does the team assigned feel about it? Needless to say, they are grumbling about it but as we should know, a solider is nothing but like a pawn in a game of chess the moves of which are determined by people far from any pain and without any proper understanding of how painful war is in reality.

For any person, this movie is a must-watch. It is a must-watch for many reasons. You must watch it because it will remind you of what the world has seen in World War II. It will remind you that war should indeed be the last solution that a nation must resort to. It will remind you that there is no honor and glory in war. There is only one thing - miserable death. This movie will prove to be a life-changing experience for most people. It might even leave you with some sleepless nights. Yet, it remains a movie that I believe one must watch in his lifetime.

Let me start out my comment on The Wrestler by saying that it is a very good movie and is one of the best movies in recent times. I am going to devote a certain amount of my time trying to tell you on what I think about the IMDb rating system which might convey a message to the people that I have a negative opinion about this movie, so let me make it clear right in the beginning itself. I like this movie and I think it is a great movie with some really good directing, acting and scripting.

This movie is about a wrestler and his life. The movie draws a wonderful comparative analysis between the life of a wrestler and the life of a strip dancer. I have always wondered about what precisely was the difference between a strip dancer or a prostitute and the wrestlers. Both, at the end of the day, are drawing money for a living by doing something with their bodies. This movie resonated with me in the sense that it shows that parallel really well. Towards the end of the day, there remains no difference between the two, both are using their bodies, though in different ways in order earn their living. But then again, the comparison is only a small component of the movie.

The movie centers around the life of "The Ram", a professional wrestler, his life and his passion for wrestling. The movie is a reelistic movie. At no point, do we see something that is exaggerated or something. And of course the movie is an eye opener for some of the people who still think that Professional Wrestling is a real deal and it is also an eye opener for the other extreme bunch of people who think that wrestlers are complete fake. There is an intermediate view that one needs to understand about this industry. The results and the events are scripted, no doubt about that but the pain and the punishment are real. You are live in front of a thousand plus audience and there is no way that you can fake blood oozing out of your body due to a pack of nails stuck in it in front of them. They are trained to bear that pain and they bear it to earn their living.

I must tell you though that there is nothing this movie does which makes it stand apart as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. So, how does this movie come out in the Top 250 of the IMDb list. The answer is simple. The formula used by the IMDb to calculate the eventual rating does indeed depend on the number of votes that movie has got. And so you shall see that the user base has expanded in recent times and that user base has given full energy in voting for the newer movies and thus you will find the newer movies finding top spots at the cost of older movies who people might not have seen at all. Simply said, there is nothing great about the movie The Wrestler in my opinion which gives it to be in league of the great movies of all times. That is an inherent problem with the public vote and rating system employed here.

Coming back to the movie, the direction is great. It shows the life of wrestling entertainment professionals quite well. The overall scripting has a quality of being identifiable with. No poetic dialog and no clean script. The language is that of a commoner and hence makes it great. The lead actor Mickey does a wonderful job with his role. He is a very likable character. Overall, this movie is a must-watch and even a bigger must-watch for the fans of professional wrestling.

The Kite Runner is simply an outstanding movie based on historical events in Afghanistan. This movie is based on a novel of the same name. I have not read the original novel and hence am in no position to compare the two. The movie, as I see it without any prejudice is simply outstanding. The movie is about life in Afghanistan all the way from the time when it was a free land to the time when it gets conquered by Russia and then eventually falls under the rule of Taliban. Before you misjudge let me assure you that this movie is not a history tale. It is a story set in a historical background.

This story is about a young kid born to a rich Afghan and his friend who happens to be the household servant's son. The story starts with the innocence filled childhood of these two kids and eventually as things unfold we see the two separated under rather bizarre circumstances. We see the lead character evolve from a man who is full of shyness and cowardice to a man who goes out to redeem himself, who realizes the importance of standing up and facing circumstances instead of running away from them.

Does the movie give you a realistic portrayal of the events in Afghanistan? No, the movie is not about Afghanistan, it is about this one man and his life, his life alone. So, please do not watch this movie with the expectation that you will see the horrors of Afghanistan. The movie is very mild in its portrayal of violence and concentrates solely on the thought evolution of the lead character. The cast does an amazing job. I am not sure if they are already well established actors or not but this is for the first time I have seen most of them and they have all done a very good job.

A must-watch for anyone who likes movies that can be used as tools to study the human mind and its capabilities under varying circumstances. Cheers!

Malene is one movie that really invoked the most mixed reactions from me. Normally, I would end up liking a movie or I would end up finding it a cheap pass time or find it completely stupid. This movie, I could not categorize too easily. Neither did I find this movie too likable and yet I did not hate it. The fundamental feature of the movie is that it has two parallel perspectives that instead of complimenting each other actually destroy each other as I shall try and explain.

The movie is about Malena, a beautiful wife to a soldier, admired and fancied by all the bachelors in her town. There is a group of kids including the lead character Renato who fancy her and imagine themselves in romantic alliance with her. Simply put, her beauty invokes their deepest sexual desires. The movie follows the transformation of the lead character into an adult whose first and extremely strong crush is a lady much elder to him. He always spies on her and imagines being with her. This part of the movie is meant to make you smile and laugh.

The movie's other part is the tragic tale of Malena. Her troubles begin when she loses her husband. Gradually she is forced into the immoral way of life i.e. being a prostitute in order to survive. Parallel to this, we have the young boy who is trying to come to terms with the seemingly immoral direction that his admirable first crush is taking. In the process of showing the funny side of Renato understanding his adulthood, the movie fails to convince us of the deep pain of Malena and also how she ends up provoking the town's ladies to react violently.

The ladies of the town beat her up badly on the streets to teach her a lesson. Tough this scene is meant to be and it has been well shot. But what about all the motivation? Where did it come from? We are not allowed a much deeper understanding of the ladies' thoughts on Malena. The ending of the movie is handled extremely well and it is this part of the movie that made me question as to why the remaining movie did not involve me so much? This movie could have found its place as among the most dramatic movies ever should there have been a different mixture of comical part of the movie and the tragic. The proportion adopted in this movie destroys, in my opinion, the very important element of a drama - the involvement of the viewer.

I am going to write down this entire comment in an FAQ format. Frankly, there is no other way I can think of writing anything coherent about this movie. So, I'll just try and answer some of the questions people have in mind about the movie.

How faithful is Max Payne to the original game? Well, the plot has been borrowed from the game. Mark Wahlberg is just about okay in the shoes of Max Payne but there is no proper script nor anything else that supports him and makes him believable as a Max Payne. There is bullet time in one scene and that's all. The dark, unfriendly and the coldness of the environment has been faithfully brought into the movie but all the one-liners, depth and emotion of the game is completely missing.

What are all those supernatural elements in the movie? The game was realistic in the sense that we did not see deranged people behaving crazy and nuts under the behavior of the drug. However, in this movie, a side effect of the Valkyr drug is hallucination. All supernatural elements like angels are hallucinations of the drug users.

Does this supernatural stuff add or subtract to the goodness of a movie? It takes us away from the pain that Max endures due to the loss of his family. Even suspension of disbelief does not help if one wants to appreciate these sequences. It is way too silly for the theme of the movie.

Does Mark Wahlberg make a good Max Payne? In looks and style, yes. Emotions and body language, okay on his own but not faithful to the original Max Payne. He is a different Max Payne from the game. But he hell sure should have played the game, it would have helped him. But since he has reported not to have played the game, I am okay with the off beat version of Payne he portrays but surely the script writers have been pathetic.

Anything good about this movie? A bullet time sequence is decent. At one point, Max pays a visit to his wife in his dream who tells him that it not his time yet. Max gets an adrenaline rush and makes an attempt to get out of the ice cold water. This is a relatively well done scene.

What about the bad part of the movie? This is the majority part. The script is horrible. You cannot understand no matter how hard you try the pain of Payne. There is no screen time devoted to convincing you that Max Payne has suffered a terrible loss. Nothing convinces you about the main plot. It is perfectly lame. The ending of the movie is horrible. The dialogs are horrible. Mona Sax is horrible. Natasha Sax is pointless. Overall, the movie is pathetic from both 1) Point of view of the game fan 2) Point of view of the unprejudiced movie watcher.

What should have changed for the movie to be made better? Well, 1) Add 10 minutes of more screen time and convince us why we should sympathize and identify with Max. 2) Add 20-30 minutes of more screen time and make us understand the operation of the Valkyr drug and Michelle Payne's connection with it better. 3) Remove the supernatural element from the movie. 4) Either eliminate Mona Sax from the picture or give her something significant, nothing something in between both.

These are four major points I found could have saved the movie.

Movie goers, beware!

If you are looking for a movie with tons of action, the kind of which you see in the Arnold and Stallone movies, then this movie is not for you. Many a times we really enjoy these movies where there is not a trace of realism and all that is shown is one man tearing apart a complete army. Of course, the other extreme of movies is where everything is realistic and there is something called a story, plot and a climax. This movie fits neither of the categories and that is what makes this movie really special and unique.

This movie starts out with a gang meeting. A gang leader wants to unite all the gangs to form one big crime empire. No sooner has he finished delivering the speech motivating all gangsters to unite than he is shot by a gangster in the crowd. He immediately shouts out that a member of the Warriors gang did it. And now, everyone is convinced that The Warriors are to be blamed and start hunting them. This story follows the attempts of the Warriors as they try to escape from all the rival gangs and the cops as well.

Most of the movie happens in the dark of the night. And there is nothing unbelievable that happens throughout the movie. The Warriors are not super humans and quite many gang members succumb to traps of temptation and some lose their lives. The streets, stations and the alleys are all convincingly realistic. So, one thing we know about the movie is that it is not a typical action movie. It has a tone of realism. Yet this realism has its limitations. It is not meant to show you how gangs work in actuality. No. The methods of the gangs are made-up and the movie is not meant to be a documentary on gang wars.

The movie is a weird but good balance between the thematic tones of action movies and reality based movies. An enjoyable movie overall though time and now, one tends to lose interest here and there as the movie slows down a bit. A very important point about the movie worth nothing is that this movie was made in 1979 and yet there is nothing about the movie that feels outdated. The movie is really made well.

The movie "Blair Witch Project" is a remarkably well done movie. Now, I am slightly confused with my own statement here. Because, there is not much done in this movie. I shall elaborate on what I mean a bit later on. But let me briefly summarize that this movie is indeed a scary movie that does give you the scares and the goosebumps that one expects from a scary movie. But the beautiful part of this movie is that it does not give you typical ghosts, ghouls and monsters as found in this movie. It taps on the fact that you are more afraid of the unknown rather the known. And this is the greatest strength of the movie.

The movie is about a collection of tapes. The movie starts out by stating that three kids had gone into a certain forest searching for what is simply known as the Blair Witch. They have never seen her but almost everybody has heard about her. The movie says that the kids were never found but their tapes were found and all we are shown in the movie is the tape recording of the adventure the kids went on. The movie does not have a cameraman. It is all recorded by the three kids who are the only major cast in this movie. Other people appear for only 2 or 3 minutes at the very beginning of the movie.

There is a certain rumor surrounding this movie that it is real. Many people believe that the tapes are authentic. I recommend you read the detailed and elaborate article on www.wikipedia.org which clearly explains the methods adopted by the producers of this movie to advertise this movie. The producers actually placed advertisements reporting the three lead actors as missing. This has led many people to believe and also spread the rumor that Blair Witch project is real. Well, it is not.

The movie's strength is that it shows you fear. The lead characters are scared of their experiences and fear shines on them. But if you have read about the movie in detail, you very well know that the fear on the characters' faces is genuine. They did go to the forest and instead of making them act, the director actually decided to scare them and thus the fear you see on their faces is genuine. So, for the genuine emotions of fear, frustration and tension you see on the characters, I'd prefer giving credit to the director. After all, he made the decision of making half of their experiences seem real to them. I don't know if it is a cruel way of making a movie but it works. The audience is scared and the movie is meant to do that.

The most scary thing about the movie to me was the stick figures they find in the forest. This really heightens the overall tension in the movie. The characters have lost their way in the forest and are doing the balancing act between consoling each other and also taking out their anger on each other. Each blames the other for their state of misery. We get to see genuine anger, frustration, fear and eventual terror in this movie.

A very "well done" movie indeed. Highly recommended for watching especially in the dark and preferably alone!

The number of movies that address social issues and inspire at the same time are very limited. This movie "Freedom Writers" is one of those few movies about a ground reality portrayed for what it is. This movie is about a teacher called by her students as Miss G played by Hillary Swank. The teacher finds her class to be a bunch of students all from very disturbed family backgrounds. The students show their backgrounds in the behavior and all their acts threaten to make her life as a teacher very miserable.

Hillary Swank plays the role of an ideal teacher who is willing to go any distance in order to do something she thoroughly believes in. She believes she can make a difference to the lives of these kids and is hell bent on doing so. In the process, she is ready to fight the system, stand up to her seniors and even risk jeopardizing her family. This movie is not just about the struggle of a teacher to do what she believes in at any cost but is also about the bitter reality of gang wars and racism. The movie explores the lives of the students and what has led them into their present states. Hillary Swank is a gifted actress no doubt but there are a few short comings in her act in this movie. Her overall role is decent but not near her best.

The movie is very inspiring but it does come with a couple of drawbacks. The transformation is shown to be too ideal. For instance, if you see the movie "To Sir, With Love" you are always shown one or two guys who resist the very attempt of anyone trying to touch their life. We, as humans tend to resist change even if it is for the good. The amount of resistance shown to be offered by the students to her attempts seemed a little too less. How much of this movie is accurate in portraying a reality is something I guess only those who are aware of the situation described in the movie will be able to talk about. But one can see that the situation time and now appears to be a bit over dramatic and exaggerated. Trying to change the tone of the movie to be darker when it is meant to be dark could have helped.

Though the movie sways a little from realism time and now, we must remember that the movie is not actually meant to be a documentary. I guess one can sideline some of the overdone things because the strength of emotion and message in this movie is inspiring. Some people might go overboard with their criticism of this movie but in the end it has a good and powerful message to convey and I believe one should ignore any and all comments asking you to refrain from watching the movie and simply watch it.

If there is a movie that truly depicts a teacher in a straight yet effective manner, it is this movie "To Sir, With Love" based on the book of the same name by E R Braithwaite. I had read a small excerpt of the book during a literature class and this attracted me to see the movie. The movie moved me a lot and I personally consider this movie as a true classic.

Sidney Poitier is simply an amazing actor. He plays the role of a teacher Mark Thackeray who has failed to find a job as an engineer and hence has decided to work as a teacher until he gets a break. He ends up in a school where all the kids are rejects, considered as the worst of all. Initially losing his temper with the kids and not being able to resort to corporal punishment, Mark comes up with a revolutionary method of teaching which he hopes can be used to bring about a change in the spoiled bunch of kids.

And he does. His method works and soon all the students begin to transform themselves. But not everything goes on perfectly smooth. There is always this generation gap between the students which causes them to lose their faith in him at one time and distance themselves. All the actors who play the students also have done a wonderful job with their respective roles.

What is very special about this movie is that it does not show something magical. It is simply psychology at work. Mark knows the way kids think and precisely attacks them in the areas where they will get affected most. He plays a wonderful set of tricks and manages to bring about a transformation in the kids which comes out at a believable pace. The movie does not show unbelievable magic but demonstrates to us the power of patience and goodness.

This movie is about an ideal teacher and might well serve the purpose of being an ideal movie to demonstrate the qualities of a great teacher. The most touching scene comes at the very end. Knowing how many more kids he can help makes Mark realize that it is his purpose in life to help kids transform into men. The still scene where he tears up his appointment letter as a radio engineer simply sums up the message of the movie effectively.

A must watch for all serious movie goers. It is an old movie but nonetheless it still has a message for our times.

The amount of time that I can get on my hands to read books is very less and hence it was always my last choice to read a Harry Potter book considering that it is meant for the children. No amount of hype about the Harry Potter book could ever drive me to read the book. I always would resort to alternate reading. And then one fine day, I saw this computer game of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I enjoyed playing it and it was through the game I came to know the story of Harry Potter. I felt that it was so brilliantly done. I began to wonder whether it was the creativity of the game designers that created this world or was it the sheer genius of the author to make us imagine such a world. I decided to find out and finally read the book. And it was then I realized that Rowling had indeed created a whole new world for us and so fresh it was.

Finally came the movie for me. I decided that I wanted to see the movie. And I was delighted watching this movie. The whole new world this movie exposes to is so filled with delight and cheer. The child cast is amazing. Each one convinces us that he or she fits the shoes of the character they are playing. At no point of time, one gets the feeling that "Oh, this is not how Rowling described it!" The movie and all the characters have been created with wonderful precision staying as faithful as possible to original descriptions penned down in the book.

The computer animations and special effects are simply amazing. It is hard to imagine that so much of CGI is involved in the movie. It is so wonderfully done that one might wonder if such a world does exist and all the movie makers had to do was to use the camera to capture it. The movie makers have spared no effort in creating the world of Harry Potter. Every single scene is so well thought out. This movie deserves all the praise it has got.

The book and the movie is no doubt targeted at the children but I am sure that even the adults are going to love this movie. Somewhere deep inside all of us there is a child who wants magic with whose aid we may forget the perils of the world in which we live and escape into a dream of fantasies. This movie provides us just that. The world in this movie is so alive, so cheerful and so delightful. This is one of most amazing and fresh movies in years. A must watch for all movie goers independent of whether you have read the book or not.

Truly amazing!

The name Troy reminds us of the Trojan War portrayed by Homer in his Iliad. And thus when the movie came out, I had watched it hoping to find a depiction of the same. But this movie Troy merely borrows names and characters from Homer's Iliad and otherwise is not such a sincere adaptation of the original. What is worse is that the movie does not have a proper pace and the overall handling of the plot is not to the mark.

The primary reason the Trojan War took place is because the Gods wanted it to take place. Humans by themselves could never have done the deeds that led to the war. It was the madness that Gods infected their subjects with that led them to wage a war of madness on each other. This movie decides to go for an alternate treatment of the Trojan War. It removes the Gods. There are no Gods in this movie. If there are no Gods in the movie, then the act of Prince of Paris running away with Helen looks too feeble and weak. The movie fails to convince us the need of war. And when there is no need of a war, the overall enjoyment of the movie is lowered.

The overall depth of the characters is poor. There is not much of character development that leads to understand their actions, their strengths and their weaknesses. Perhaps Achilles is the best done character though he is not a consistent character. Some of what he does at the end of the movie is not consistent with his overall attitude throughout the movie. The King of Troy, Priam is the only character that I could enjoy watching apart from Achilles. The movie lacks in its portrayal of characters.

But there is something good in the movie after all. In spite of the overall plot being poorly handled, there is some really good action to watch out for. The two wars in the movie and the photography is wonderfully done. The scenery is wonderful. And the best part of the movie to me is the single mano-e-mano battle between Hector and Achilles. This is among the most well shot and choreographed fights I have seen in a long time. However, the reactions on the faces of the relatives of Hector who know that the end is near is too artificial and disturbing to the beauty of the fight.

Overall, the movie is not enjoyable. I especially did not like the way the ending of the movie is handled. It is too lame. Today, when I get the chance I do not like to see the whole movie. I simply switch to the scenes that are well done but it is simply not possible for me to watch the whole movie again.

Tom Hanks is among the best actors in the history of cinema and his name always arises in a discussion among seasoned movie watchers when they discuss about the best actors ever. And when one is talking about Tom Hanks, the first two or three movies that one talks about will contain "Philadelphia" as one of them. This is truly one of the most influential movies I have ever seen in my years spent watching movies. The story is about a lawyer named Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) who is a gay and has contracted the HIV infection. He is eventually fired from the firm where he works because of this and the movie showcases his battle for justice.

When the law firm comes to know about the truth that their top lawyer Andrew is a gay, often visits the gay clubs and in this process has acquired the HIV, they decide to find an alibi in order to "clean" their firm off Andrew. Andrew knows the bitter truth and wants to fight for his rights. And he finds a lawyer Joe Miller(Denzel Washington). One can say that essentially see the movie from the perspective of Joe Miller. He is homophobic and just like most of us, he thinks of them as inhuman people.

He is motivated by the magnitude of the case to take it up. He finds himself studying Tom Hanks and his surroundings and then begins to understand that all his inhibitions about gays are so very false. He finds Andrew to be a human being just like any other with the same level of commitment, passion and sincerity. He is exposed to the world of gays and gradually begins to understand them. And as he does, so do we. The movie's biggest strength is change our perspective about gays. The movie transforms our perspective of them from that of seeing them as senseless and stupid to seeing them as human beings just different in certain aspects. We are also taught by this movie as to how this difference between them and us is ignorable.

In the middle of the movie, we are show Andrew's lover played by Antonio Banderas. I found this part of the movie to be most beautiful. The bond of affection and love between Antonio and Tom is so wonderfully portrayed with perfect control. There are no hard scenes which could have destroyed the movie. Instead, there is the most difficult to showcase aspect called body language. It is all body language! The relationship between Andrew and his lover is understood from their body language and it teaches us that it is hardly different from the kind of love and affection we all share for each other. We are also shown their families and get a peep into their feelings and attitudes.

There are some really powerful scenes in the movie. The scene where Andrew indulges in the opera, the scene where Andrew loses his consciousness in the courtroom. And the last scene really leaves you with tears filled in your eyes. This movie dares to move on tough grounds. And it does a wonderful job. This is a must watch for all people. A very powerful movie indeed!

Forrest Gump is one of those few movies that are so realistic and yet one cannot help but watch with a sense of wonder and amazement each time one sees it. It is the most heart touching movie I have ever seen that has so much to teach you and so much inspiration locked within it. Each time I see this movie, I slip into a different mood and the movie never fails to move me. The movie is about a boy with an average IQ who is taught by his mother only thing - to never let anyone tell him that he is different and cannot do anything in life. And off he goes pursuing his dreams with only a clean and pure heart and immense sincere dedication as his tools.

Tom Hanks is such a wonderful and a versatile actor. He has played so many diversified roles and each of these roles, he has played with so much finesse. It is hard to imagine what the movie could have been if somebody else stepped in Tom Hanks' shoes and tried to play the role of Forrest Gump. My suspicion is that the movie would have been a tragedy had it not been for the beautiful portrayal of Forrest Gump that Tom Hanks has done. The Oscar he won for the movie is well deserved.

Forrest Gump starts off wonderfully and moves at its own pace. We are gradually exposed to the simplicity and purity of its central character. He demonstrates how the qualities of the strength of heart and soul can win the game anytime over terrific brains. The movie has a lesson to teach that all it takes is focus, determination and a clean mind in order to conquer the world. And what is beautiful about the movie is that it does not show something drastic and unbelievable. It can very well be a tale that is happening right now in our own world.

The movie is not all serious. It has a wonderfully portrayed and rightly timed humor content. And no matter how many times you have seen the movie, the dialogs still have their effect on you. Each time one sees the movie he or she will smile when the movie wants you to smile and will make you cry when it wants to make you cry. The most touching aspect of the movie is the very character of Forrest Gump. He is dedicated, sincere and very simple. He has no cynicism in him, no jealousy and not a single trace of any negative emotion. The movie is about his world, a world without jealousy, greed and full of purity.

The music score is wonderful, so is the direction, so is the acting and so is the photography. It is indeed hard for one to find anything wrong with this movie at all. It is simply too neatly done and too beautifully handled. I cannot think of one thing in this movie that could have been done in a better way. It is a beautiful movie and deserves all the praise it has been getting. It is destined to stay in the list of best movies ever made perhaps forever. It is one of those movies that one must watch before their time.

Darren Aronofsky has without a doubt created the most different and unique movie of our times. The movie is shot in a completely unique way, the direction is completely fresh and so is the story, imagery, acting and plot. This movie takes us inside the mind of a mathematician who has taken his passion for studying numbers to a point of obsession. He sees numbers and patterns everywhere and is convinced that he can find the key to everything in the universe inside numbers. The movie is about his journey from a passion to a madness that eventually starts tormenting him.

Sean Gullette plays a wonderful role as a mathematician Max who is working on number theory. He has his own computer in an apartment where he lives alone. He spends the day in and day out searching for patterns in numbers especially in the stock market. He is convinced that the whole of nature follows a pattern in numbers and knowing this pattern, he can understand nature to the fullest which in short means that he can find a way to even predict the outcome of the stock market. But here is a catch. He is not a normal human being. He suffers from neurological conditions and is on heavy dose of drugs that he uses to alleviate his pain that he experiences in the head when he stresses out himself.

Another very important character of the movie is Max's mentor. His name is Sol. He himself has worked on the origins and importance of "Pi" and has faced the consequences of the madness one can experience when he becomes too obsessed with numbers. He advises Max to stop thinking about the patterns. He is of the view that once you have decided to seek a pattern, you will always find it since your mind cannot think of anything other than patterns. The movie shows debates and conflicts of interest between him and Max.

What can be disappointing for most viewers in the movie is that which part of the movie is inside Max's head and which part of it is outside is something that the movie does not bother to make clear. The movie simply explores the mind of the paranoid and obsessive mathematician. But how much does the mathematician see that is in concurrence with the reality defined by others? This is the answer that the movie does not provide and nor does it offer enough clues to make intelligent guesses about it. Another drawback in the movie is that it is misleading in representation of some of its facts. But that is not too big a problem since I am sure most viewers will resort to the right sources and not the movie if they want to know about the various patterns of numbers that the characters talk about.

There is some really creative imagery in the movie. At one point of time, Max sees a brain in front of him. When he tries to poke a certain part of it, he hears whistles of a train. And pressing it harder, he sees a train heading right for him clearly demonstrating how the brain plays a significant role in defining your reality. The movie is about Max's reality as his mind sees it. Truly one of the most remarkable and intelligent movies I have seen in a long time.

This Insomnia, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Al Pacino and Robin Willaims is a remake of an original Insomnnia movie. I have not been able to see the original movie and hence I cannot draw any comparisons between the original one and this one. But I guess that it is good in one way since I get to think about the movie without any prejudice at all. This movie is one of the most remarkable movies I have seen and indeed showcases Christopher Nolan as an upcoming director.

Robin Williams and Jim Carrey are actors known for their comedy. And another common thing to them is that when they decide to step into roles other comedy, they produce masterpieces indeed. Robin Williams plays the role of an author of crime novels who has also killed a young girl. He has a dark and a negative role and plays a character who is very straightforward and calculative. And boy oh boy, does he manage to convince us in this role. It is one of the best roles of Robin Williams I have seen. I must confess his roles in Bicentennial Man and One Minute Photo and this role are in fact much better than his typical comedy roles. He has showcased some amazing acting skills in this movie.

Al Pacino is of course among the finest actors in the whole world. And needless to say, he delivers all that is expected out of him. He plays the role of a cop with a dark secret of false methodology of conviction with Internal Affairs closing in on him. He ends up killing his partner accidentally but it turns out that his partner was going to help Internal Affairs close in on Pacino. And hence nobody is going to believe that he killed his partner accidentally. And to add to all the trouble, there is Robin Williams' character who knows this secret and is using it to get away. Pacino is the one who is suffering from Insomnia. He is in a country where there is no night and there is no peace in his mind. Have you wondered what it is like to carry a heavy mind craving for the peace of the night? Look at Pacino in this movie! Simply masterpiece acting.

There is a short but very effective role by Hillary Swank as well and she does her part beautifully. She plays the role of a cop who is helping Pacino on the case. She also holds deep respect for Dormer (Pacino) since she has spent her training days studying his cases. Overall, the cast was really good. Christopher Nolan chose a very silent approach in this movie. In some parts of the movie, the overall silence creates the sort of haunting effect needed to create the impact. But the silence does not seem to work in certain scenes and may lead viewer to become disinterested.

There are times in the movie where the pacing tends to get a little slower causing an occasional loss of interest. But overall, this movie is indeed a very well done movie. The team assembled is indeed a great team. It will not disappoint most viewers who have some expectations from a team like Nolan, Pacino and Williams.