The Movie Geek

***Spoiler Alert!*** The Spin-off of Harry Potter  franchise had made Potter-heads go bonkers when it was announced. Then it was announced that Eddie Redmayne (Theory of Everything and The Danish Girl fame) was cast as Newt Scamander and that David Yates (Director of last 4 Harry Potter movies) will be directing this venture. Though Yates was not able to make his magic work with Tarzan, I've expected him to work wonders with Fantastic Beasts. Then, great talents as Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Ezra Miller and of course, Johnny Depp join in and make this movie one of the most anticipated movie of this year. Trailers boasted of quality, action, thrill and magic. Let's see if the movie has managed to live to the expectations. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) reaches NY in 1926 with a case full of magical creatures with an intent to release Frank, a giant Eagle-like creature. One among them, is a Niffler, sneaky duckbill platypus-looking animal, which has a thing for shiny o

***Spoiler Alert!*** Golden Rule #1: Not every super hit movie needs a sequel. Golden Rule #2: When you force a unnecessary sequel on audience with absolutely no interesting plot, it falls flat. It'll not even work as a cash grab. Yup, the makers of Rock On 2 totally and completely ignored both these golden rules. They tried forcing this movie so desperately on audience that they didn't even hesitate to twist each and every one of our favorite characters from the first part so much that they lost all that we loved about them. Totally. Rock On!! ends perfectly. The story of Magik , a rock band and their friendship, sorting out their issues and giving closure to all the characters involved. Rock On 2 completely undoes all that work and creates a mess. And moving forward, it keeps messing up the situations and characters that at a certain point, you feel like every character involved need psychiatric treatment. Though Rock On!! was a complete picture, when Rock On 2 was

***Spoiler Alert!*** After a long time since its inception, MCU introduces magic to their universe and due to that, Doctor Strange has been a very important movie. They got is perfect with casting. This is one of the most star-studded cast movies in the whole of MCU. Being an origin story and not having much of connections with the rest of MCU movies, Doctor Strange had large audience base and Marvel has been successful in getting them give a shot for their latest outing. With a strategically planned path by Kevin Feige (President of Marvel Studios) and wonderful vision of Scott Derrickson (Director of Doctor Strange) , Doctor Strange comes out as a fresh serve-up. Doctor Strange starts off with Master Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) and his disciples stealing forbidden rituals from their London Sanctum Library (too much for being a safe house eh!) . They hold the librarian with Lassos of Truth  something that looks like the Lasso of Truth (of Wonder Woman) and beheads him. Ente

***Spoiler Alert!*** Thanks to my sisters, I had to watch this movie which I wouldn't have otherwise! The best thing about this movie? The whole controversy stirred couple of weeks before it's release. Yup, that was much more entertaining! Though I didn't have much hopes from Karan Johar, I've always been an admirer of Ranbir Kapoor's acting, especially when he cries and looking at sensible subjects he usually chooses  (barring a few like Besharam, Roy e.t.c.) , I was tricked into believing there'll be something new in the movie. Oh boy, was I wrong! The movie starts off with Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) being interviewed after he has become a successful singer. One of the questions from the interviewer makes him start his life story with Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) and Saba (Aishwarya Rai). Ayan has these obsessive feelings (ooh! creepy!!) towards Alizeh, a weak character who is obsessed (creepy part 2!!) with Ali (Fawad Khan). As Alizeh carries off to marry Ali af

***Spoiler Alert!*** Clint Eastwood is a Legend! At 85, his American Sniper (overrated) instantly grabbed 6 Academy Award Nominations. Tom Hanks is another Legend who needs no introduction. The team-up of these two Legends to tell an untold story of 'Miracle on Hudson' pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger created enough buzz among the movie world. The Trailer  created enough attention to become one of the biggest movies of this year. Though the movie works, the "true events"  play minimal part in this thrilling tale. Sully wakes up from a nightmare as he crashes Flight 1549. This happens the same day as he actually saves the flight (partially!) and 155 passengers in it by force landing on 'The Hudson River' after losing both the engines after a bunch of birds crash into them. What follows is a couple of days investigation from NTSB, who thinks Sully landing the plane on The Hudson was a bad move and finally clearing him off after a dramatiz

***Spoiler Alert!*** You better take the title seriously because if you won't, chance is that you'll be in real trouble! It's been real long for a movie with quality Thriller/Horror content to shaken up the movie industry. Fede Alvarez , director of latest Evil Dead took the challenge to put an end to our wait. The cat and mouse chase, though an usual concept, gets executed wonderfully. For a movie with most part being in just one house and only four characters, this thriller keeps us at the edge of the seat all way long! Sam Raimi is yet again involved as the producer and I see that this guy is not gonna let any quality horror film pass without having his involvement! Money ( Daniel Zovatto ), Rocky ( Jane Levy ) and Alex ( Dylan Minnette ) are three thieves who break into houses of their victims and rob them. Money finds out about a blind man ( Stephen Lang ), a veteran, who's got lot of cash stacked in his place. Being an easy target, all the three of them pro

***Spoiler Alert!*** DC's third installment in their Cinematic Universe with all Ensemble cast did get a  lot of attention. The Trailers were beautiful, filled with exotic characters and fantastic music. With David Ayer, 'Fury' fame taking the megaphone, it had promise written all over. Though the product delivers, it's far from what it promised. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is a mean-lady who wants to use her prisoners with exceptional abilities for better good by getting into an agreement with them that is more beneficial to her interests. (It's like an employer exploiting his employee. Sucks!) She puts in a team of Meta-humans, Gang-bangers, Witches and Crazy people (read as one crazy woman) to fight a mysterious entity from other dimension. However, these baddies have their own intentions and motivations once out of their cage. With an unpleasant team-up turning into an unusual friendship, these bad people actually do some good and that forms the rest o

***Spoiler Alert!*** Though Star Trek can never reach the level of awesomeness of Star Wars (Come on! lets face it!) . Nonetheless, it is one of the longest running successful Sci-Fi franchises ever. With beneficial two installments, Star Trek Beyond had lot of expectations on. Bringing in Justin Lin from Fast & Furious Series added fuel to the fire. J J Abrams , who had directed the first two films heading the production department for this movie just made a stronger team. The third journey on Enterprise is fun, given it's flaws. Just as the curtains are lifted, we see Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine) trying to negotiate with a group of aliens to sign a truce with a different alien planet as that's what an usual day looks at Federation. He tries to get this done by offering them a long lost artifact which presumably belongs to them. After a failed attempt at  truce, Kirk saves the artifact in Enterprise. Later, Enterprise and it's crew are lured into an ambush lead by Kr

***Spoiler Alert!*** India's Biggest Superstar, Sir Rajinikanth is back with a movie whose trailer had literally broke all the records before. I was so impressed by that same trailer that I had watched it at least 15 times in a day. 'Kabali' , coming after 2 not so successful films of Sir Rajini , had got audience rooting for it beyond skies. Since the first look, marketing has been brilliant and Sir himself looked stunning. Whatever may be the package, all that matters is the content and 'Kabali' falls short of content to say the least. Story starts off with high command of Kaula Lumpur police discussing whether to release 'Kabali' from the prison he had been kept captive for over 25 years or not due to the situation in the city. 'Kabali' is released and that makes up for a fantastic introduction. However, losing his wife and daughter takes a toll on him. He becomes delusional about his family. On the other hand, things aren't same as

***Spoiler Alert!*** CBFC has created enough buzz around the movie which had to invest absolutely nothing in promotion. Watching the movie, it feels like all the buzz was actually worth it! Shahid Kapoor has been one of intelligent stars out there with very few really dumb movies. With Kaminey, Jab we met, Haider, he proved himself. Alia Bhatt, on the other hand showed the meaning of acting with Highway. With Abhishek Chaubey taking megaphone and Anurag Kashyap producing the project, the expectations were over the top to say the least. On top of everything, Punjab drug problem being the center premise to the project, the project was just perfect on the papers. Let's see how it fairs on the big screen. The movie opens with three guys on bike trying to get coke (Cocaine) into Punjab. Tommy Singh (Shahid Kapoor) is giving one of his performances with drugs in his system. The Cocaine package is later found by the girl only known to us as Mary Jane (Alia Bhatt). Dreaming for best d

***Spoiler Alert*** We haven't forgotten the time when little Nemo had us drooling. Swinging to it's magic. Wanting for more! And exactly then, Disney- Pixar comes up to serve the story of the forgetful fish, one of the most likeable characters in animation history, Dory. Not to mention how much everybody loves Ellen DeGeneres, she is magnificent with her voice acting. And no, the movie is not only a funny, cute animated flick but also carries a message! The movie kicks off with Dory's childhood, with Charlie and Jenny, Dory's parents teaching her to deal with her forgetfulness (The baby Dory is one of the cutest character I've ever seen BTW..!) . With that dream in her head, Dory wakes up just to forget about her parents, again, being just her usual self. However, with fragments of her past coming back into her memory, Dory remembers that she's got a family and that she needs to find them. With only one goal in mind, Dory starts a journey, a journey that M

***Spoiler Alert!*** I've always seen Bryan Singer as the Father of X-Men Movies Franchise. Overall, he's a great filmmaker with a few set backs. The prime reason he was able to do great X-Men movies seems to be his understanding of the characters. Once 'The Last Stand' flushed all his work down the gutter (Bryan Singer didn't direct that movie) , the call of making prequels worked out perfect for 'First Class' (Still the greatest X-Men movie for me) . Alternate timeline strategy worked out great for 'Days of Future Past'. With the need of bringing in popular X-Men characters (Scott, Storm, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and Angel) , 'Apocalypse' set up a badass villain against the X-Men. But, did it work out?! 'X-Men Apocalypse' starts off with Apocalypse transforming himself into a mutant (Oscar Isaac) who's got immortality. Certain Egyptian resistance team, which is against the whole process cause an accident and the transformati

***Spoiler Alert!*** 2016 is crazy! We've 7 Comics based movies in this year and Supervillains are building teams while Superheroes are fighting each other. One of the movies where Superheroes fight each other is out the gone weekend and has some of the most likable Marvel characters ever. Captain America: Civil War stands out in a lot of departments involved in film-making. With one of the longest and well choreographed action sequences, Captain America: Civil War keeps you involved while also questioning you if you're supporting the right (or left) side. Having said that, the movie has it's own flaws. Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) remembers Steve Rogers (Captain America) as his long lost childhood best-friend. With all the unforeseen catastrophes that have occurred every time Avengers fought larger threat, Thunderbolt Ross gets a proposal of Avengers being monitored by 117 Countries' joint committee. While the egoistic genius Tony Stark (Ironman) agrees to the

**Spoiler Alert!** "Mowgli is coming to big screen in a live-action movie?! Yeyyy!!!" , Yup. That was my reaction when I cam to know about this movie. And with Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Chef) holding the megaphone, I expected that this would be really cool. And he didn't let me down! (Thanks man!) . Let me admit this, I've kept searching for instances in the movie where the CGI would look unreal or like out of the place. Yet, I couldn't find one moment. With proper inclination towards the source material, perfect casting, great script and music, The Jungle Book turns out to be a great movie. The story, nothing new from that of the original, is about a man-cub (as the animals call Mowgli) who is found and raised in the jungle by Bagheera (a black panther) and a wolf pack. Mowgli leaves jungle for a man-village with Bagheera when a truce is broken between the Wolves and Shere Khan (an evil Bengal tiger) is bound to kill him. His adventures an