Ghost Rider : Spirit of Vengeance

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012 (India)
Time : 95 minutes
Director : Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor; Writer : Scott M Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S Goyer; Music : David Sardy
Starring : Nicholas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Violante Placido, Fergus Riordan, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth, Christopher Lambert

A real yawn inducing film with a wafer thin plot, sleepwalking in place of acting and nothing new in terms of presentation with visuals similar to the previous film.

The devil, Ciaran, is interested in a boy, his son, Fergus. The mother, Violante, and Cage try to protect him and keep Ciaran at bay, aided and abeted by Idris. Ciaran also has a helper, Johnny, who changes form midway through the film.

Once the novelty of Cage transforming into a skeleton on fire & riding a bike goes away, there is precious little the film has to offer. And we see the above visual so many times, in close up and from afar, that there is zero excitement left post the halfway point.

The end, when it arrives, is weak & tame. Nicholas Cage looks old and bored (don’t know which is worse). The others fail to excite. The music, in the rock realm throughout, desperately tries to rouse some enthusiasm but only ends up grating on the nerves.

The film seems to have been made simply because a sequel made commercial sense even though it lacks a core, enticing idea. The entire movie is shot in a grey, black palette and that very much sums up your mood as you leave the hall.

Woman In Black

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012 (India)
Time : 95 minutes
Director : James Watkins; Writer : Jane Goldman, based on the novel by Susan Hill; Music : Marco Beltrami
Starring : Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciaran Hinds, Sophie Stuckie, Misha Handley, Jessica Raine

Daniel Radcliffe, a widower for the last four years, is still unable to come to grips with his wifes death. Even his charming four year old son is unable to bring a smile to his face. A lawyer by profession, his work is also suffering and he is sent to a village to sort out what seems to be a routine succession of a house left behind by a lady.

However, he is clearly & strangely unwelcome in the village. The house seems haunted. Kids seem to die young, by committing suicide. And it all seems to be linked to an often seen apparition of a woman in black.

Daniel Radcliffe is impressive. Having only seen the first Harry Potter, have only seen him as a kid. Here, he looks grown up but not totally. There is still a little bit of a child in him which helps him retain his endearing qualities. The story itself goes along predictable lines, scaring in bits, building tension right from the beginning.

I am not a fan of the occult. Prefer to stick with the rational, that which can be explained logically. I will struggle to explain or cope with the way this one ended. Nothing we’ve not seen before, nothing much to take away home.

Ekk Deewana Tha

Rating : 2/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012
Time : 140 minutes
Director & Writer : Gautham Menon; Music : A R Rahman
Starring : Prateik, Amy Jackson, Babu Anthony, Manu Rishi, Sachin Khedekar

A Hindi remake of Gautham Menon’s Tamil film Vinnaithandi Varuvaayaa

There was a joke in the film about Amitabh Bachchan and Mohanlal. I found that funny.

There was a conversation between father and son towards the middle, with the father, Sachin Khedekar, coming across as quite chilled out despite being a ‘Maharashtrian Brahmin’. I found that interesting.

I found the rest of the film excruciatingly painful. Flawed in terms of its storyline, the characters, the dialogues and I even found issue with the make-up…

The film is about a young boy, falling in love with his ‘neighbour’. His landlords daughter, actually, who lives upstairs. Courting her essentially by stalking her. And trying to convince her to love him back by blurting his feelings for her at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t seem to believe in things like becoming friends first. Events that unfold are much in the same vein and he even finds a willing accomplice in his mentor, a cameraman, played by Manu Rishi.

Because of the stalker hero, in the entire first half we’re treated to the sight of Amy walking either towards the camera or away from it multiple times. Sometimes, for variety, while walking away she looks back. Sometimes she just walks straight on. And they vary her clothes too, to establish that she looks good in all sorts of dresses including jeans, salwar kameez and sarees.

In a film like this, based on improbable and implausible love, what is necessary is a lead pair so charming they make you forget the flaws in the story. A boy who endears himself as a lovable rogue. A woman who bedazzles so much that we are blinded to everything else around them. Both, Prateik (was that strawberry lipstick he wore during the film ?) and Amy (who's skin colour varied from shot to shot), fall way short of the mark here.
Manu and Sachin, in fact, were the only two who came away with any credit for acting.

Locales are nice, music is nice but cannot rise above the film. Its also not converted fully into a North Indian / Hindi film, retaining a distinctly South Indian flavour & sensibility that also doesn’t work.

Love, they say, is a many splendoured thing, alive with all the colours of the rainbow. The love shown here was anything but. Plodding, indecisive, monochromatic. Instead of inspiring you to greater heights, it only made you do silly things. Unfortunately this is one remake which didn’t work at all…