The Cabin in the Woods

Once in a while, a movie comes along that changes the fabric of a genre completely. The Cabin in the Woods is that movie for the horror genre. After watching it, the experience of horror movies will just not be the same, no matter what country the movie is from or what language it is in. The Cabin in the Woods achieves something singularly iconic that is perhaps applicable only within the horror genre. However, to fully appreciate the movie, it is essential to be familiar with the genre and yet view it without being prior aware of how it accomplishes what it does.

Briefly, The Cabin in the Woods follows a group of five friends who arrive at an isolated cabin to spend the weekend. Their intent is to stay away from technology and contact, surrounded by wilderness and enjoy the weekend away. As may be guessed, things don’t necessarily go as planned. Soon, the boys and girls are struggling to survive the horror that unleashes upon them.

As generic as the plot may sound, the genius of the film’s makers is to take the familiar and do something extraordinary with it. Exploring some of the well-known clichés of the genre, but not being obnoxiously self-aware of them in-movie (like the Scream sequels), the writers pay homage to the best while setting the bar extremely high for film-makers who aspire to make genuinely good horror movies. Expertly crafted and lovingly presented, the passion of writer Joss Whedon and writer-director Drew Goddard is evident right from the onset. The witty dialog exchanges and setup of familiar scenarios mixed with the unexpected sets the tone of the movie early on. Even so, little hint is given of the grand finale when, quite fervently, all hell breaks loose.

Even with all the fun and love The Cabin in the Woods has with the genre, Whedon and Goddard’s movie is neither brainless, nor shallow. The critical statements it makes about the exploitative nature of the genre as well as the audience of the genre’s movies are a part of the combination punch that the movie provides. Combined with the clever writing, the movie has an excellent repeat value, especially for those looking to revel in the details the movie is crammed with. This also means that the movie is mainly targeted to the ardent horror-fan, who recognizes the homages and clichés. Therefore some may find the movie quite bizarre.

The Cabin in the Woods provides for passionate discussions as an after-movie experience, as well as enough reference material to become the topic of discussion after watching other horror movies, past or future. The movie is likely to become a part of pop-culture, and with its iconic-yet-generic name, it is not a movie that will be forgotten anytime soon.

Take one bad-ass actor. Throw him in the middle of nowhere. Pit him against a pack of wolves. Sounds like the perfect ingredients for a juicy genre film. The Grey is that film, and it is not. Liam Neeson plays the bad-ass who, along with colleagues posted in Alaska, crash lands into a snowy landscape with no hope of rescue. They soon realize that, by their very presence, they have threatened the territory of a pack of wolves, and so begins the survival game.

Director Joe Carnahan, after the stinker A-Team (2010), comes back roaring with a movie that is much more than what the trailers indicate. This is a survival-thriller with subtext. It is not fast-paced nor exploitative. Instead, it is paced rather leisurely (for its genre), and takes its time to explore Neeson’s character’s psychological state. This is a man who starts as someone ready to die, but through the movie, he becomes a man ready to face death — there is a difference and we see that difference. Much like the plane crash scene that triggers the main-plot of the movie, what the movie shows us is not glorified for the audience, neither is it made a spectacle for the visual power it could carry. Instead the movie, and key scenes, are played out for their effect, much of which is based on the audience’s understanding of what’s going on. In doing so, the director shows great restraint, as well as a level of patience hardly seen in present-day mainstream filmmakers.

The Grey is not flawless; far from it. While the first & third act are excellent, it falters in its second act. A few deaths do seem forced, the director/script succumbing to the genre conventions, and these are dealt with in a by-the-numbers way, with little creativity about it. But, even for its flaws, this is Carnahan’s return to form. If riding on the name of Liam Neeson in the lead-role for publicity and marketing The Grey as a genre movie brings the audience into the cinema, to bring such evolved movies to the general populace, so be it. And with a kick-ass ending like that, it is difficult to not be awed by it.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is a marvelous movie. It perfectly embodies the beauty of Hergé’s unique visuals with modern animation and motion capture technology, all unfurled on screen with producer/director Steven Spielberg’s master story-telling and child-like energy. Combining their creative genius, Spielberg and co-producer Peter Jackson (whose studio Weta Digital is behind the visuals) make the dream of Tintin fans everywhere come true by presenting the much loved character and his adventures in the best possible way. While the movie does become overbearing at times, owing to its manic pace, it revels in the wonders and freedom of animation, uninhibited by the constraints a live-action adaptation would have imposed.

Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell), a young journalist, and his dog Snowy are cast into an adventure when “The Unicorn”, a model ship he purchases at a market, becomes the object of everyone’s attention. Ivan Sakharine (voiced by Daniel Craig) tries to buy if off Tintin, but when he refuses, it is eventually stolen from his home. As Tintin embarks on a quest to discover the truth about the ship and its secrets, he stumbles into Captain Haddock (voiced by Andy Serkis) who seems to know more about the mystery than he cares to admit or can even remember. Together, they take on Sakharine in the race to unravel the secret of The Unicorn.

The movie, though it is titled “The Secret of the Unicorn”, is an amalgam of three books: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s Treasure. The credited scriptwriters do an excellent job of providing the necessary character introductions while retaining the best bits from the books. In doing so, however, the storyline strays from how the events unfold in each of those three three books. Yet, fans will have little to complain about considering the narrative and pacing are a compliment to Hergé himself. While recent adaptations such as 300 and Sin City have been lauded for how faithful they have been in the transition from comic-book panels to the cinema screens, The Adventures of Tintin takes the next evolutionary step, buoyed by the boundless talents of one of the best directors working in the medium today. Undoubtedly, the biggest reason that Tintin works is the visuals. Weta Digital presents us with a world that walks a fine line between realistec and animated. The texture and backgrounds of this world are photorealistic, while the characters seem like living, breathing 3D counterparts of Hergé’s comic book creations.

It does not take long to be completely taken in by the movie’s love of exuberance. Tintin shares its dynamic sense of fun with Spielberg’s first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. References to his past movies, most prominently Jaws, and Spielberg’s recurring motifs only serves to make the entire movie experience all the more enjoyable. Even so, the breakneck pacing catches up and the last action set-piece seems a bit over the top. In other instances, the floating camera (that’s Peter Jackson there) is too quick, causing an uneasiness associated with the use of 3D technology. Though the movie is not perfect, its snags are far and few. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is ample proof of how much fun nearly two hours in the cinema can be.

Shawn Levy, director of Real Steel, makes an admirable transition from comedy to mainstream-drama. I say mainstream-drama because, even though the movie is set in the near future, it isn’t really much of a Sci-Fi. This future world features fighting robots, but the focus of the movie is on a father-son relationship. Despite the familiarity of many of the scenes, Levy makes it work mainly due to the charismatic lead actor that Hugh Jackman is and the novelty of the backdrop that the story is set against.

Adapted from Richard Matheson’s short story Steel, the movie follows Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a reckless man who seldom gives much thought to his instinctive decisions. Once a promising boxer when human fights were still legal, he now lives out of a trailer, trying to make a living out of robot-boxing. When saddled with his long estranged son (Dakota Goyo) for a summer, father and son team up to put together a robot, Atom, which the 11-year old reckons can take them to the championship.

Although Shawn Levy is more known for his inane comedies (Pink Panther and Night at the Museum among others), he proved himself more competent with 2010’s Date Night. With Real Steel, he breaks further away from his comfort zone and enhances his resume. As a staple offering of the genre, Real Steel suffers from a simplified plot and contrived scenes that are clearly meant to please the crowds. Even so, the movie has heart. It is easy to root for the underdog Atom, though its wins come across as too convenient if given some thought. The robot-boxing sequences though are a spectacle. These robots are mercifully realized as burly and heavy metal machines, not light-weight acrobatic marvels; this makes the fights exciting. When Atom steps into the ring for the final fight, it has dents (bruises?) on its body.

Real Steel, though, also suffers from being predictable and mediocre in many parts. Shawn Levy limits his motive. He does not try to be too ambitious, instead settling for being safe. He sets the movie away from big cities, evoking a decidedly small-town appeal. Yet, even with the robots, his movie’s biggest draw is its leading man, Hugh Jackman. His Kenton grows from careless to caring, and Jackman makes him believable and identifiable – when cocky or vulnerable. Despite not setting any new precedents or being too memorable, Real Steel proves to be a good time at the cinema. Without slowing down too often for the dramatic parts, the movie engages for most of its 127 minute run-time. While it may be an enjoyable yet forgettable movie, Real Steel hints at better work from Shawn Levy in the near future.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

A decade long series comes to an end with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, a grand finale of emotions and explosions as the real and reel worlds witness the final face-off between arch-enemies Harry Potter and Voldemort. As Deathly Hallows: Part 1 suggested, director David Yates pulls out all the stops, giving the audience everything they had hoped for from this franchise climax, and even making up for much that many of the previous movies lacked. Amidst the magnitude of the setting and the action that takes place, Yates never loses focus of the emotional core of the plot, doing justice to the many characters that populate its wizarding world.

Dark Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has acquired the Elder Wand, the most powerful magic wand there is, intending to use it to kill his one and only opponent, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), the boy who survived. Harry Potter, with friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), continues his quest to seek out and destroy the remaining horcruxes, magical objects that contain fragments of Voldemort’s soul, intending to reduce his power and render him vulnerable. The two enemies will eventually battle to death at the one place that nurtured them and gave them power: Hogwarts, the final battleground of good vs evil.

Much like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Part 2 starts on an ominous note, this time picking up exactly from where we last saw the characters. The film continues with the final leg of the journey of the lead trio, maintaining subdued colors and frequent close-ups of the main characters to exude the morose outlook the wizarding world faces. Even so, Yates does a perfect balance of emotional involvement and large-scale action sequences. As expected, the movie is a spectacle of special effects and locations, owing to the last feat the lead trio have to perform before the final battle. Raiding an underground vault of Gringotts, the wizarding world’s bank and the resistance at Hogwarts castle are the two major set-pieces of this movie, both accomplished with as much visual splendor as the scenes required and that which modern CGI technology can achieve. The elaborate score adds to the visuals to truly make this last installment as epic as should be.

In their infinite wisdom and greed, the studio and creative behind the movie had decided to split the last book into two movies. Whatever the motive, the decision proved itself in the result: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Parts 1 & 2 combine to do justice to the source material as well as prove to be the best movies of the franchise. David Yates, in his fourth consecutive outing with the series, has finally made a movie that is equally deserving of the accolades that the books have generally received. The revelations and references littered through-out Deathly Hallows: Part 1 which made the movie cryptic for non-followers bear fruit in this movie, mainly to explain the many past events as well as provide closure to numerous sub-plots, primary of which is of Alan Rickman’s Professor Snape. The explanation for his motivations acts as an emotional crescendo, again proving the dexterity of Yates.

For now, this is the final part of the Harry Potter world, with no more movies scheduled. Unfortunately, the series has not much to look back to, with most of the movies being rush-jobs to get through the labyrinth plot of the individual books by directors who were clueless about where the many characters and sub-plots end up, physically and emotionally. Yet, Harry Potter and his friends will be remembered fondly down the decades, owing to this fantastic two-piece finale.

Green Lantern

In a year that has seen two excellent superhero movies from Marvel already with another promising one on the way, rival super-hero publisher DC’s only outing this year is Green Lantern, and what an embarrassing movie it is. While fans of the comic-book hero are bound to be disappointed, the movie does not hold much for those new to the Green Lantern lore either. There is enough of the good-looking lead pair and by-the-numbers action and special-effects to keep the summer-movie audience engaged during its runtime, but it has little to call it a good movie. In an era when the standard for superhero movies has been set by The Dark Knight (the same studio behind Green Lantern as well) this film is a comparatively dismal effort.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot for the US Air Force. After a botched-up day at work (Jordan crashes a new fighter jet after sacrificing his wing-man as bait), he becomes the first human chosen to join the Green Lantern Corps, an age-old team of warriors who police the Universe against any threats. Green is the color of will, a good energy that gives the Green Lanterns their power. Unfortunately for them, Yellow is the color of fear, a bad energy that gives power to the evil being Parallax that devours worlds – a being so powerful that no lantern, alone or in teams, can stop it. Damsel-in-distress Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) is Jordan’s boss and unnecessary love interest. Dr Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) plays an ugly and uncool Silver Surfer-esque , Earth-based agent for Parallax, and Sinestro (Mark Strong) is a politician in the guise of a Green Lantern – he talks a lot and promises much but hardly does anything.

Ryan Reynolds tries to play off his charm to make his character likeable, but it works against him this time. The role of Hal Jordan, one of DC’s leading second-string characters, demanded a “Hero”, someone who could embody honesty, bravery and the willingness to set things right for the sake of doing right. These qualities have so well been embodied by many other actors playing superheroes in varying degrees based on the hero they play (Tobey Maguire, Christian Bale and chief among them: Christopher Reeves). Reynolds’s Hal Jordan though is just a goofy guy who cannot be trusted with anything. The “Green Lantern” ring finds him for what is in him, a quality that even he may not be aware of, and daresay the ring may be right, but the movie fails in showing it to us. The lack of any growth in the character becomes the movie’s biggest flaw. Without seeing Hal Jordan grow from a regular guy to a world-saving hero, he’s just a guy in a bad CGI suit and a bandit mask.

The grand finale of the movie, the supposed action set-piece is also a half-baked attempt. With thousands of Green Lanterns from all over the universe unable to save Earth, Hal Jordan manages just that, not because he is fearless or has “humanity”. It is because the rest of them are not clever enough to think of the plan that Hal Jordan comes up with. Either director Martin Campbell did not seem to have understood what the modern super-hero movie requires, or was the wrong man for the job. His final product lacks interesting characters and suffers from predictability, bad effects and a haphazard narrative. Presenting it in 3D is also likely to give further impetus to the detractors of this technology. Though Warner Bros may have been hoping for a new franchise with Green Lantern, its fate may as well be the same as the title of Ryan Reynolds’ previous movie, buried.

The Hangover (2009) was perhaps the most potent comedy of the last decade, putting an excellent mix of characters in an extraordinary situation that lent itself to all the fun. One way of making a good sequel to it would be to take those eccentric characters and put them in a new situation. Another way would be to get a new bunch of characters and put them in the same situation. Unfortunately, The Hangover: Part II does neither, and instead takes the same characters and puts them in the same situation, proving what it exactly is: a sequel made to milk the success of the first. If it was released a few years later, it could just as well have been called a reboot.

Stu (Ed Helms) is getting married in Thailand, since his bride’s parents live there. Two days before the wedding, Stu sits down with his friends and brother-in-law for a safe drink – sealed bottles of beer are handed out to each. As expected, three of them wake up the next morning in a dingy room of a shady hotel in Bangkok. Phil (Bradley Cooper) is cool, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) is shaven bald and Stu has a tattoo on his face. Doug (Justin Bartha), back at the wedding resort, is safe. But Stu’s brother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) is missing. Also, there’s a monkey in the room. So begins, nay restarts the search for the missing person without memory of anything that transpired the previous night.

Director Todd Phillips pulls off a Michael Bay with The Hangover: Part II. Like the latter did with his Transformers sequel, Phillips relies on the success of the first movie and the existence of its characters in this movie to be enough to bring in the crowds. He does not aim to make a better movie, or even a different one. The agenda simply seems to be to capitalize on the box office success of the original. Many scenes are cloned, the sequence of events is closely followed and even the final reveal is strikingly reminiscent of the previous film. Yet, all this emulation is done at the cost of dumbing down the movie. Instead of piecing together clues, at least two characters have an epiphany about what might have happened. Many jokes are aimed squarely below the belt, forcing cheap laughs. There is hardly a genuine laugh-out-loud moment in this entire movie.

The wolfpack of the original movie were good-natured guys just caught in a bad situation. They are not as likeable now, especially Galifianakis’ Alan, who had a method to his madness then but just acts randomly strange now. Other characters also behave abnormally to situations, only further exposing the lack of any hard work put behind this movie.

As with most Todd Phillips’ movies, The Hangover: Part II is rated R. It is strongly suggested to take this rating very seriously when considering watching this movie. Not just in visuals, but even in language and implications, the movie pushes the envelope of crude entertainment.

Dum Maaro Dum

Six years after his sophomore feature, Rohan Sippy brings us Dum Maaro Dum – a movie that has all the right intentions, but fails on a few key points that are too evident to ignore. Its single biggest flaw is the “look”. Sippy has washed the entire movie in a stale yellow palette, giving it the putrefied look of a decades-old film that has not been preserved well. This garish misjudgment becomes a distraction and, worse, deterrent from enjoying the movie for what it should be worth.

Set in a narcotic-infested life within Goa, Dum Maaro Dum canters around a cluster of characters affected by the drug-trade. Incorruptible ACP Vishnu Kamath (Abhishek Bachhan) is assigned the task of cleaning up Goa, thus setting him up for a head-on collision with ruthless local businessman Lorsa Biscuta (Aditya Pancholi). 17-year old Lorry (Prateik) wants to make a quick buck in order to follow his girlfriend and fulfill his dream stateside, but unwittingly gets involved in drugs. DJ Joki (Rana Daggubati) finds himself caught in the cross-fire when first his girlfriend (Bipasha Basu) and now his friend Lorry get entangled in the mess. Their lives collide as ACP Kamath works to bring the drug-trade crashing down, trying to uncover the major player behind it all.

Rohan Sippy seems to have had a clear idea of what he wanted out of the movie, but tends to be juvenile in how he goes about achieving it. He falters in his execution, oscillating between style and substance erratically. Sippy chooses the path of quirky stylization early in the movie which wanes in the latter half to make way for the drama. Meaning this in the best possible sense, the story is mostly an updated version of many 80s movies that featured a hero cop and a rich villain habitually in white suits. This could also account for the stale-yellow look that was probably meant as a tribute but comes across as a gross-error by the projectionist. Dum Maaro Dum does feature some wonderful lines, referencing everything from Google to facebook and twitter, most of them spoken with panache by Bachchan.

Dum Maaro Dum’s biggest asset is, curiously, its multitude of stock characters, easily recognizable with years of use. These are rendered interestingly because of the effective performance of some of the cast. Standout of the crowd is Prateik, despite his high-pitch vocals. An effortless actor, Prateik brings genuineness to his character that, coupled with Abhishek Bachchan’s charming turn as the fearless cop, wins the audience. Rana Daggubati manages to walk through his role, looking the part, but scarcely registering any appeal. Aditya Pancholi is a welcome return as the rich screen baddie, thankfully with a head full of hair.

With a runtime of a little over two hours and a steady pace, Dum Maaro Dum keeps you interested throughout. If only Sippy had done away with the awful remix of the classic track it takes its title from and the piss poor look, he would have a movie that would score at least more than just average with the audience.

Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles is not, by any measure, an original movie, yet it manages to be engaging. Movies about alien invasions have been done often enough and better. In Battle: Los Angeles, director Jonathan Liebesman does it a little differently: he takes the Cloverfield approach. Instead of presenting the big picture, the focus stays on a small battalion of soldiers and their fight for survival.

Staff Sargent Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) has his retirement rejected when hostile aliens attack 20 major cities around the world, including Los Angeles, in a coordinated text-book style strike on humans. Nantz and his crew are tasked with evacuating civilians holed up in a police station before a scheduled drop of explosives on Los Angeles to wipe-out the aliens. With time running out, the soldiers must survive, fight and escape from an enemy that only wants to exterminate.

Instead of a big budget summer movie, Battle: Los Angeles is made as a war movie, albeit with aliens as the enemy. By adhering to the standards of the genre, the movie manages to be an odd combination of intense and ordinary. A tepid story and a screenplay populated with generic characters is only made further uninteresting by its predictability but is partially salvaged by some wonderful action sequences and imagery. The standard assortment of characters include soldiers who are white, black, Asian and Mexican, served complete with a rookie and a civilian doctor (she is a veterinarian in this case – they’re dealing with aliens, after all). To complete the clichéd package, the film also utilizes extensive hand-held camerawork, with shaky scenes that try to present sci-fi fantasy as realism.

Yet, even with these drawbacks, Battle: Los Angeles works for the most part. While it seems to be aimed squarely at testosterone-fuelled video-game junkies who enjoy their hours of in-battle action, the fight sequences are as intense as they are entertaining. Some of the concepts are well thought out. The aliens arrive on Earth via ships that decelerate with a bang just over the surface and the idea that they need to invade our planet for its one major resource: water. But other concepts are equally silly: the anatomy of the aliens for example and the way in which one faction of the aliens is eventually brought down.

As a misunderstood veteran war hero, Eckhart does not bring much to his role apart from a gravelly voice. Even Michelle Rodriguez, who relishes in tough-girl-performances, seems tired here. Though director Liebesman’s latest stands out as an admirable effort amongst his insipid repertoire, it will not do much to raise his credibility. Much like leftover pizza, Battle: Los Angeles manages to be enjoyable without being completely interesting or satisfying.

Right from the distinct 3D Disney logo at the start, Tron: Legacy is a visually striking film. As depicted in posters and trailers, it has a dazzling, pulsating vibe that relies heavily on CGI — which is apt considering how much of the story takes place inside a digital world. Director Joseph Kosinski marks his feature film debut by making full use of his past experiences, having made equally striking television commercials. Tron: Legacy, therefore, works best for its action, and somewhat less for its story or drama.

The movie begins a few years after the story of the original Tron ended. It’s 1989 and Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), CEO of ENCOM International, tells his son Sam about a new technological breakthrough he has discovered while working on “The Grid”, promising to take him there one day. That night he disappears, never to be seen again. Presumed to be dead, ENCOM is taken over by its Board of Directors. Cut to twenty years later and Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), now 27, inadvertently finds himself transported into the Grid, which he discovers to be a digital world that exists within the mainframe of ENCOM. He learns that his father has been trapped here for the past two decades, while CLU, a program that Kevin had created in his likeness, rules the Grid.

Tron: Legacy is hardly original — it takes inspirations from many movies — but its charm is in the way these elements are combined. The center-piece of the film, the games arena sequence, is a massive upgrade of a similar scene from the original Tron. Gorgeously rendered, the light-cycle battle is set in an arena with multiple levels, transparent floors and ten bikes competing for survival. Bodysuits with funky neon lights, a dark world with high contrast, backlit luminosity and a techno-heavy soundtrack by Daft Punk make the Grid look very cool. Garrett Hedlund, as the lead, helps the film in no small part, performing his role with a youthful but suave machismo. As Sam he is confident, but not cocky. Jeff Bridges as the aging Kevin Flynn and digitally de-aged in post-production to play the younger CLU, is amusing in both roles.

Most (though not all) of Tron: Legacy is in 3D, primarily those scenes set within the digital world, and because they were shot in 3D, the result on screen is quite effective. It is to the director and Disney’s credit for not exploiting the technology: the 3D scenes are not manipulative (no objects deliberately poking outwards from the screen), and more importantly, the scenes shot in 2D have not been digitally converted to shoddy 3D in post-process either, hence freeing the film from the burden that many 3D live-action movies that have been converted seem to carry. Ironically, this also means that the movie can be enjoyed in regular 2D screens without losing out on the experience.

For fans of the original, there may be much amiss here. The Grid, as defined in the original movie, has been modified in structure and idea. Other thoughts have been left open-ended, and the in-world mythology has been somewhat redeveloped. Thus, while Tron: Legacy is a sequel, it functions better as a stand-alone film, though one that may spawn future sequels.