THE AVENGERS REVIEW

Avengers was on my most awaited films of 2012 list.
So, does it disappoint? Of course NOT. I never doubted you, my dear Whedon. 

There are tons of reviews out there, and you can pick any one of them up and read them and it won’t change the fact that you’ll be watching this film (unless you’re an idiot, in which case, get back to your made-for-TV romcoms). So why read this? Because it’s a review by a comicbook fan for a movie for comicbook fans (and others) directed by THE comicbook fan of our era.
And Avengers is (arguably) the greatest most perfect comicbook adaptation ever.
Now, I’m not saying it’s the greatest comicbook movie ever (Batman Begins/Dark Knight still holds that position) but it is the best adaptation of a comicbook ever. Dark Knight doesn’t feel like a comicbook, but it is a better movie. But this one, it feels so much like a comicbook. And I think that’s because of Joss Whedon, who’s got quite a lot of experience writing comics (Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and he’s marvelous here. HE’S THE REAL STAR. Nobody else could have done it better. He handles the characters amazingly well, and gives each character their time to shine. A character like Hawkeye or Coulson is given as much importance as Iron Man or Thor. And Hulk…he’ll have you cheering and screaming and laughing, because this is the best interpretation of the Hulk so far.

A lot of twitter reactions say that Iron Man overshadows every other character in the movie. Those reactions are absolutely wrong and possibly written by RDJtards. Nobody overshadows anybody. They stand together in the movie. Side by side. As a team. As. They. Should. And I absolutely applaud Whedon for that. I had some fears that Iron Man would serve as the leader-type given his current popularity, but that isn’t the case. Captain America LEADS the Avengers, and Whedon gives us good reason why he SHOULD lead them and why everyone else is listening. But since Whedon has to appease Robert Downey Jr’s ginormous ever-expanding ego, he does something really cool with Iron Man, but handles it so that it doesn’t overshadow other characters.  To get these guys together and to do such justice to them… Whedon accomplishes an absolutely impossible feat and I congratulate him for that.

Hiddleston is amazing as Loki. It also helps that he looks so much like the Loki of the comicbooks. When he gives you that maniacal grin, you know that they couldn’t have gotten anyone better for it.
I love the Avengers. I love how they were handled and I love how they are treated with such respect.

What I didn’t love in the movie is Nick Fury. Whedon writes him as a manipulative General who’ll do anything in his power to save the world and it isn’t his fault that Fury doesn’t shine. It’s Samuel L Jackson’s. A person’s badassocity can only carry a character till so much, and I feel SLJ isn’t fit to play Fury. Sure, Fury’s shrewd and manipulative, but he’s also noble. And that’s where SLJ fails. He just didn’t shine like the rest of the cast, and it wasn’t because he was underwritten or anything… SLJ just couldn’t pull it off. And I’m saying that as a huge Samuel L Jackson fan who keeps on using his dialogues in real life situations, mind you.
Another thing I didn’t like was the story. It felt as if someone handed Whedon an outline of the Ultimates comicbook and told him to write a screenplay off that. I feel Marvel didn’t really trust him enough to come up with a marvelous story. So the story as a whole is lackluster. But you’ve got some great dialogue and some magnificent action sequences, so all is forgiven. Avengers could have been a much better movie, in my opinion, if they let Joss Whedon off the chains and let him do whatever he wanted. Maybe he’ll get more freedom while doing the sequel (which is very likely given the Nerdgasm-inducing mid-credits scene.)

And then there’s the Chitauri (AKA Skrulls) (it isn't a spoiler, they're namedropped five seconds into the movie) who look nothing like Skrulls and behave more like Random Alien Army. But that isn’t a problem because the last hour or so of Avengers is absolute carnage. But within this carnage is drama. These aren’t just a few cool scenes that show off CGI unlike the Bayflicks. You do get the sense of something happening. You care about the characters. You want them to win. And you’re most probably cheering for them and you don’t even know it.
The dialogue is amazing and smart and all kinds of awesome and it is an absolute act of sin to not listen to it. Do yourself a favour: if anyone’s talking in the theater, tell him/her to shut the fuck up and if they don’t listen throw a tub full of popcorn on their head (as I did). Whedon is a maestro of dialogue, and every bit of it in this movie is nothing short of brilliant. And most of it will make you laugh out loud. I guarantee.
Avengers is a movie made by people who love the characters, and it shows, because that love kind of crosses over to you from beyond the screen. And I love that. This is how movies should be made. Out of love and a little bit of respect, and not out of formulas or magic potions or whatnot the industry believes in.
8/10
Avengers opens on 4th May in the United States. It is currently running in European and Indian theaters. 

The GREY review

This was one of my most awaited movies of 2012. Keep in mind that I read the script first and then watched the movie. 

LOVED GREY. Fucking LOVED it. 

Liam Neeson gives in a masterful performance. Amazing direction.

Just have one complain though : the theme of the movie changes halfway. It becomes a movie about faith, about deeper ideas, and it couldn't have chosen a worse time to preach these ideas (the third act). Thing is, a movie should pick up pace when it REACHES the third act, and this one loses it's pace as it nears act 3.

Also, learnt something really awesome about film making from this movie. When your characters are not fleshed out well, you should make them face an antagonist that is so inhuman that you'll feel for the characters. And boy, are these wolves inhuman as fuck. Brilliant direction by Carnahan (why he insists on making action movies totally escapes me) saves even the most underwritten parts of the screenplay. 

And fuck, that plane crash sequence is to die for. I've never seen a better plane crash sequence/vehicular accident sequence in film EVER. Brilliantly directed. 

Sound design is pretty impressive, too. I won't be surprised if this gets an Oscar nod for that and Neeson's performance. 

And there is no wolf-punching. I know the trailers showed wolf-punching, but they were advertising a different movie. So be well aware that THERE IS NO WOLFPUNCHING IN THIS MOVIE. 

I'd give it a 8/10. If not for the relatively mediocre third act it would have been a 9/10. 

Do watch. But keep in mind that there is NO WOLFPUNCHING.

Where Three Nolan Fans come up with a very interesting theory

I was on one of the innumerable Nolan fangroups and had this VERY, VERY, VERY interesting conversation with two other fans.
And our theory is...well.... check it out below. You'll discover it as we discovered it and this theory could potentially change all that we know about Nolan's upcoming The Dark Knight Rises.
Surajt drops the bomb first.  

I just watched Elite Squad 2

WARNING : This post contains me giving a lot of fucks

Synopsis: "After a prison riot, Captain Nascimiento, now a high ranking security officer in Rio de Janeiro, is swept into a bloody political dispute that involves government officials and paramilitary groups."

It's fucking textbook scriptwriting : Give characters the hardest fucking time you can. Be fucking brutal. Push them to the fucking limit, fuck them to hell, damn them. That's how you write a screenplay. You write fucking amazing character arcs, make the audience fucking love the characters or fucking hate them. Make it as fucking complex as fucking possible. And that's what Tropa de Elite fucking does. 

And Nascimento, here, goes through the fucking most hardest time possible. I won't tell you even a little bit of it. I want it to fucking shock you and move you as it fucking did me. When the shit hits the fan, your jaw's going to fucking drop. Hard. Doesn't matter if you're a fucking child murderer or a fucking rapist, it's going to get to you. It's that fucking good. This movie will give you fucking chest hair. And it's a fucking interesting story of one man against a fucking army of motherfuckers; bureaucrats, politicians, media personalities, the fucking Brazilian mafia. And this guy is fucked. He's fucked from everywhere, his wife's married the one fuck responsible for getting him off the squad he loved serving so fucking much. His son fucking hates him for doing whatever he has to do, and there are enemies fucking everywhere. 

The stakes aren't physically very high. Shit isn't about to blow up. Not physically, atleast. It fucking attacks where it hurts most. Not the fucking crotch, if you were wondering, but the fucking heart. This movie just falls short of fucking launching a harpoon through Nascimento's chest. It gives him a very fucking hard time. And that's why it's excellent.   

And director Jose Padhila is fucking gifted. A lot of directors channel beauty, wonder, and love through their films. But this guy, he channels fucking rage. Just look at the fucking number of fucks I give to this post. That's how well he channels it.

And Micheal Bay lovers will suck Padhila's wet cock after watching this movie.

That's how action is done, motherfuckers.

That's how you make a fucking movie.

Fucking A grade stuff, like 100 kilos of weed. Fucking 9/10 in terms of numbers. Way fucking better than it's prequel (which is worth watching too).

Fuck yeah. Haven't seen this good an action film in a long fucking time. Fuck Yeah. Watch it. Definitely watch it. I recommend watching part one before this, but I don't really give a flying fuck if you don't. You don't need to really know what happens before. This is the best fucking film out of Brazil I've seen since City of God.
Also, I won't be surprised if this wins the best foreign language Oscar. My only regret is not watching it fucking earlier like my Uncle told me to. Damn. Should have watched it then.
Buy Elite Squad here. Elite Squad 2 : The Enemy Within here. 

Why you should check out Animal Man.

The DC relaunch, the new 52, so far...well, I'm in two minds about it. 

On one hand, it's taken characters such as Aquaman and Wonder Woman, who were previously the butt of all Superhero jokes and turned them into something amazing, but on the other hand, it's ruined more iconic characters like Superman, Catwoman and Starfire. I think even DC is confused as to where it wants to take these characters, because that Catwoman/Batman sex scene at the end of Catwoman #1 was a new low for DC. It was just freaking awful. 

But that said, there has been some good from this New 52, a lot of good, actually, in the form of Animal Man and Swamp Thing. And a lot of you morons, who think comics are for kids, or for man-children, or whatever stupid misconception you have, should definitely check them out.  

Animal Man's powers are that he can dig into, well, nature and copy a trait from an animal that is nearby. But the comics aren't really about Animal Man using his powers and foiling bank robberies, it's much more deeper than that. An early arc of Animal Man published in the eighties', written by Grant Morisson was one of the trippiest comics of all time. He depicted Animal Man as a family man, and as an activist whose activities bordered on eco-terrorism. It found the fourth wall, took a sledge hammer, and smashed it to bits and spread the shards all over the world. It was a comic where the character himself interacted with the person writing him. It'll take a long time to explain, and I won't explain it here, so, if you will, you can buy it from Flipkart. 

This new arc, by Jeff Lemire is nearly as trippy as Grant Morisson's arc. Well, I'd say it's on par with it. Jeff Lemire is very much a capable writer, as evidenced by his work on Sweet Tooth (Being published by Vertigo at the moment). And he has that amazing ability to bring an air of unease in every panel. In Sweet Tooth, he creates an atmosphere where you really can't trust anyone. There are no safe places. And he uses that ability of his very well on Animal Man. The current story arc sees Animal Man trying to save his family from the "Rot", the spirit of death and disease that is threatening to destroy all life. He finds out why he is Animal Man, and why his family is so important to the world. There are genuine moments in the comicbook where you will be hard-pressed to utter an "Oh Sh**". This is a thriller that thrills you and shocks you by making characters you actually care for go through a really, really awful time. And that, I think, is it's strongest asset. 

The art by Travel Foreman has been, for most part of the current story arc, brilliant. Some bits of it have been uneven, but for the most part it's been good, and has complemented the story near-perfectly. The inking by Jeff Huet on these books kind of uplifts the pencilling. It makes the original art look better than it should be. The one problem with the art is that it could do with some more black outs. It needs more blacks. That's what makes it uneven. It should have as much black as a piece of Mike Mignola art. And for this minor reason, the coloring somewhat falls short of wowing us. 

But otherwise, it's a brilliant book. People who haven't been following it should buy the collected edition when it comes out in May from here, and it's a bloody good starting point for those who don't read comicbooks at all. 

You can purchase Jeff Lemire's other comicbooks here. 

Here's another movie you HAVE to watch next year.

That's from a movie called Upside Down, by the way.

Here's a lookie:



I have no idea when it comes out. But when it does, I'm going to be first in line for a ticket.
It's been a while since we got scifi with such an amazing concept.

Synopsis : It's, like, Romeo and Juliet, but between two worlds. Just...just bloody watch the trailer. Synopses are boring.