chand-suhas

New serial killer dubbed Banana killer is tormenting Kerala and his targets have been elderly men. The case is handled by Ajay Ramachandran who is a tough guy but is hurt by the disappearance of his pet dog. Elsewhere, Luke is arrested for posting about the serial killer and is considered a suspect, only for his town folk to come in support of his innocence. He is about to be sent away to Czhech Republic and has an ugly breakup with his girlfriend Jessie. A bus driver Jithin Kumar's marriage is fixed and the bus conductor Aruvi has grown up with a missing father. A pervert old man Kuruppu gets on the bus driven by Jithin and Aruvi while Jessie and a government official SK are the other passengers. Events lead to Luke getting onboard this bus and the shocker is the serial killer too is on the bus. What does the night unfold, forms rest of the story.

The dark comedy films are a rare genre and is not easy to crack them. Siju Sunny and Shivaprasad's screenplay doesn't really do justice to Siju Sunny's story which definitely had potential. The film starts off well and introduces all it's main characters. The humor works well in the first half and the pace is good too while establishing each of these characters with a bit of back story. The killer too is revealed in the first scene making way for the dark humor to carry the film. What brings the film down is the dull second half where the humor is less and the story feels dragged. The promising character especially that of Ajay Ramachandran and his pet dog get no scope in the story. 5 people on a bus with a dead body and 1 of them being the serial killer was good enough to make a whacky comedy film but Maranamass just misses the opportunity in delivering one.

Steve always wanted to get into the mines but couldn't get past the guard. He finally succeeds getting past him and discovers both orb of dominance and earth crystal, opening up a portal to the Overworld. Finally getting to live his childhood dream, he builds his own paradise and domesticates an wolf by naming it Dennis. He stumbles across another portal, leading him to Nether, an hellish world run by a piglin named Malgosha whose greed for gold has enslaved all the other piglins. Steve is caught and he helps Dennis escape with orb of dominance and earth crystal to the real world, to be hidden in Steve's house. Years later, the portal is opened up again by Henry and Garrett who had got hold of the crystal, following them are Henry's sister Natalie and Dawn. Maglosha finds an opportunity to grab the crystals once again and how does they survive with the help of Steve, forms rest of the story.

Clearly aimed at the kids, the film delivers a simple story with very few humorous moments, hoping for the cast to pull it off. I am not someone who played this game regularly so for me it was just another video games based film with Jack Black in the lead. Trusting his comedy timing along with Jason Momoa, I expected a decent enough storyline. However, the simple story is simply overstuffed and stretched, with bare minimum attempt at humor and I found myself searching for good laughs throughout. There are enough characters without any decent arc so all remained extremely one dimensional throughout. I tried to stay open minded as much as I could, but the film had very little to offer in terms of jokes in those 90 odd minutes. It was all about being creative in the overworld and that's how they were supposed to defeat the villain, sadly the creative part left a lot to desire.

The world has turned chaotic after the reveal of the entity. Ethan Hunt is ordered to surrender himself along with the key but he once again refuses to follow his orders and decides to go after the entity. His mission is to kill the entity, assembling his team including Paris who wants her revenge. Gabriel still wants to control the entity and he plays Ethan Hunt to get what he wants. The entity has already started taking control over the nuclear powers and with an all out nuclear war imminent, Ethan Hunt has to race against the time to save the world from the entity as well as Gabriel.

Christopher McQuarrie overstuffs the film where he has prepped it as Ethan Hunt's swan song yet wants to keep him in the game as the world continues to need him. The eighth film doesn't follow it's previous films as the initial scenes are dedicated to evoke the nostalgia. Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt once again shines and stuns the viewers with the stunts. Though his efforts are laudable, the screenplay is rather a mixed bag with uneven pacing, especially with the drama. The whole submarine segment paid off while the lengthy biplane scene is made worthy by Tom Cruise. These scenes on IMAX screen was worth the theater visit. However, the film's tone is very serious and gives very little room for the franchise's signature humor. As pointed out earlier, it started out as a swan song and later they changed their mind, this heavily shows in the screenplay. Overall, it's a decent watch thanks to two solid segments.