Marvel’s heroes are mighty - just not as much as last time around; Gabbar Is Back - but he shouldn’t have bothered.
Avengers: Age OfUltron *** 1/2
Dir: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, James Spader (voice), Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Samuel L. Jackson
With The Avengers, writer/director Joss Whedon had delivered almost the perfect superhero movie. Full of small intimate moments and humorous bits as well as grand set pieces and spectacular special effects, The Avengers allowed all of its many lead characters room to shine. The comic book fans grinned and nodded in recognition and the "civilians" marvelled at the spectacle and gasped at the exhilarating action. It was a seamless culmination of what Marvel Studios called Phase I of the cinematic universe it had been building over the past few years. In its wake, Marvel seemed to be on a roll - the second Captain America and Thor movies were superb affairs (though, admittedly, Iron Man 3 wasn’t quite as good).
As such, fans were expecting the Avengers sequel to be another home run. Sadly, despite a mighty good try, Avengers: Age OfUltron doesn’t quite live up to those expectations. Despite its scale, the first film moved gracefully from the very first scene and maintained its nimbleness right through to the very end. In contrast, the sequel’s first half – despite a number of good scenes such as the one where the other Avengers try to lift Thor’s hammer - has a clunkiness to it (Whedon also chooses to side-step many of the events from the last Captain America and Iron Man films) and too much seems to be crammed into the screenplay. Surprisingly, the CGI in the first scene of the movie isn’t also quite up to the mark, coming across more like something out of a video game.
On the plus side, those heroes that don’t have their own movie franchises (Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk) get more of the spotlight this time around. The movie also kicks into high gear in its second half as the Avengers take on the mad robot Ultron (Whedon deviates from comics continuity here - no Hank Pym in sight) and the final battle sequence is a satisfying climax, carrying heft, weight and excitement. Newcomers Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen (in particular) make an impact as the brother-sister duo of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and so does Paul Bettany as another surprise character from Avengers lore.
The movie takes its time to get going but when it does take off, it delivers. Hence a final rating of three-and-a-half stars though I’d initially leaned towards a three-star rating.
Cut to chase: Pretty good - just not as good as the first one.
Gabbar Is Back *
Dir: Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi (Krish)
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Shruti Haasan, Sunil Grover, Jaideep Ahlwat
A remake of the 2002 Tamil hit, Ramana, Gabbar Is Back treads overly familiar, dated ground and follows a disturbing trend (after movies like Singham Returns and Ungli) of advocating vigilantism to right all of society’s wrongs. Worryingly, the movie goes even one step further to provide a justification for the executions of corrupt officials. Sure, context is provided as to why Gabbar (a nomde plume adopted by college professor Akshay Kumar, taking his cue from Sholay’s main bad-guy) appoints himself as judge, jury and executioner and a speech at the end decrying taking the law into your hands is supposed to provide a sop to adherents of due process but, really, who are we kidding? The movie is one long paean to vigilantism.
Apart from my problems with the movie’s message I had major issues with the finished product. The script is dull and doesn’t even offer any good lines of dialogue. Say what you will about movies like MaulaJat or Dabangg but, at least, they had some pretty terrific lines which have gone on to become catchphrases. The movie isn’t even able to draw inspiration from Sholay where Gabbar (Amjad Khan) had the choicest bits to spout. Akshay is Akshay (except he sports a wavy hairstyle and a beard this time around). Shruti Haasan looks good but has a superfluous role as a Google-fact spouting flake. Kareena Kapoor has a cameo and the gorgeous Chitrangda Singh does herself no favours in a somewhat sleazy item number.
Cut to chase: Awful and dangerous in its messaging.
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