Thor (2011)

Rating: 3/4

As per mythology, Thor is the hammer-wielding God of thunder and lightning after whom Thursday ("Thor's day") gets its name. However in Marvel's comic book universe, he is one arrogant son-of-a-God who, much against his father's wishes jeopardizes the feeble truce that exists between his kingdom of Asgard and the Frost Giants. Angered by Thor's arrogance, his father-and-king Odin(Anthony Hopkins) strips him of his powers and banishes him from Asgard to live on Earth as a mortal.

Much of the movie's creative efforts have gone into the visual-effects and writing departments which partly make up for the pretty simple plot. Jotunheim, the cold, crumbling and dark home of the Frost Giants oozes with artistically-rendered menace and also adds to the creepiness of its inhabitants. In comparision, Asgard is not so imaginatively depicted. The clash between Thor and the Frost Giants on Jotunheim in the first half of the movie is unarguably the highlight of the movie and is on-par with what we have seen in Lord of the Rings. However on the downside, this rises the bar a few notches too high for the rest of the movie to attain. Kenneth Branagh's script infuses humor into the proceedings, just as Jon Favreau's did to Iron Man, which is a good thing because it allows us to forgive some of the weaknesses of the movie.

Talking about weaknesses, Thor's nemesis is not intimidating enough. He is quite a manipulative guy, I 'll give him that, but I expected him to be at least as menacing as his minions. This is primarily why the climactic clash is a letdown. The four warrior friends of Thor who would have been interesting had some time been spent on characterizing them, come across as excess baggage. I am not sure if Branagh has to be blamed for it, its probable that the producers have decided against spending any more time and money on a bunch of disposables - Thor will return to Hollywood in The Avengers (2012), his four friends wouldn't be so lucky.

The acting is uniformly adequate though Stellan Skarsgaard surprised me with his funny turn. Natalie Portman is funny and cute and so very un-Black Swan-like in a good way. There is no motion blur with the 3D, although it could have done with slightly more lighting during the first half-hour. All in all, its fun spending an afternoon with Thor.

Rango (2011)

Rating: 3.5/4

Rango is a chameleon who cannot blend in. There is a hilarious chase scene early in the movie demonstrating this, which actually serves as an indication of things to come. But then, who wants their heroes blended or stirred?We want them shaken and thats literally how Rango starts the story of his life.

Capn. Jack Sparrow meets The Good The Bad &The Ugly in Chinatown - thats Rango in short. Rango gets accidentally deserted in a desert. Heeding the advice of an armadillo, a parched Rango heads off towards the nearest town, the aptly-named Dirt. Dirt at that time is facing its worst water-crisis and its inhabitants are convinced that only a miracle can save them. When Rango, who is most obviously a stranger in the town, accidentally kills the predatory Hawk, the entire town is convinced that he is the miracle worker. He is promptly elected the town's sheriff charged with the task of bringing water to Dirt and protecting the town from the Rattlesnake, who can roam free now that the Hawk is dead. But when the town's last reserve of water is stolen from the bank (yes, people save their hard earned water in the bank), and the town's wise old Mayor turns out to be a little too wise, there isn't much room for Rango's ineptness. He is forced rise to the occassion all while trying not to end up like his predecessor - the sheriff whose headstone reads 'Mon-Thu'

The same smile-inducing quirkiness and dodginess that made Jack Sparrow so adorable is much in evidence here, which isn't very surprising considering that Johnny Depp(Rango's voice) and Gore Verbinski(direction) are behind the scenes.With its dirt-beaten houses, unwashed inhabitants and their apparels which have long lost their original colours, the town of Dirt revels in its dirtiness. What with all the nefarious characters waiting to pick on the weak, gun-slinging being the the most rewarded skill, cacti dying of thirst and the dominant colour being brown, I half-expected Clint Eastwood to pop on the screen any moment. The Man With No Name should at least have an address in Dirt.. which he sort of does.

The animation is top-notch but that seems true for most of the recent animated outings. What really sets Rango apart from the rest is the maturity of the content. It does not take the a-joke-every-minute way but whatever it does isn't repetitive or predictable; sure there is humour throughout but it is low-key because the movie is more interested in telling us the story. Most of the humor comes from Rango's attempts to blend in the crowd and stay out of trouble, both of which he utterly fails in. My favourite however is a quartet of owls who follow Rango everywhere singing out his exploits and expecting him to die a hero's death just because it makes a good story to sing about. The action/chase scenes are well choreographed. Theres one particularly innovative shot early in the movie which shows Rango getting involved in an accident from Rango's perspective.

Rango isnt something you want to wait for on HBO.. go see it now! Leave your brats at home, this one is for you ;)

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Rating: 3/4

When it comes to evoking the audience's emotions, Loss of a loved one is perhaps the most explored theme in films. Sadly however, too often filmmakers resort to manipulating those emotions with excessive melodrama - they end up exploiting rather than exploring. Rabbit Hole avoids this pitfall.

It has been 8 months since Becca(Nicole Kidman) has lost her son in a traffic accident right in-front of her house. She openly taunts other couples at group therapy, she more-than-subtly hints how bad her pregnant sister is gonna be at being a mother, she avoids any kind of counselling from her mother, she gets rid of everything that reminds her of her son - the pet, the clothes, drawings on the fridge. For a moment there it occurred to me that this mom got over her child's death a little too quickly. The same thought troubles her husband Howie(Aaron Eckhart) too. Howie's is the more conventional manifestation of grief - he keeps watching his son's videos on his phone, loves having his son's memorabilia around the home, and sometimes breaks down crying. Friction arises between them when she suggests selling away their home.

When things go wrong we look for people to blame. Since there isn't anyone to blame for her son's death, Becca starts finding faults with everything and everyone that reminds her of her son. This, coupled with her confrontational attitude about the subject makes her look like an obnoxious fault finder. The only one to understand this is Becca's mom (Dianne Wiest) whom Becca avoids listening to or argues with. In one particularly powerful scene where Becca shows her vulnerable side, she asks her mom if the pain ever goes away. Her mom, who herself has lost a son, explains how things are gonna be with soul-stirring simplicity.

Is it necessary to follow a template of emotions for people to sympathize with you? What if the popular way of coping doesn't work for you? These are the questions posed and explored in the movie. The movie title, an obvious reference to Alice in Wonderland, refers to an imaginary parallel universe where anything is possible, including a life where everything goes right. The script is intelligent and tight and the acting is almost uniformly good with Nicole Kidman turning out the best performance.

Thank you for smoking - a review

Rating: 3.5/4

Why would someone hold on to a job that is considered despicable by most of everybody else?

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a spokesman for Big Tobacco corporation, does it because he loves his job. His job is to publicly defend Big Tobacco against any health claims and save business from anti-smoking propaganda. To him, its never about whats right and wrong, its always about winning and losing an argument. More often than not, he wins because he is a smooth talker. In one particularly ludicrous (and hilarious) argument, he accuses an anti-smoking campaigner of wishing for the death of a cancer patient to appear right, while arguing that Big Tobacco would only wish for the patient to live because they would be losing a customer.

The movie is populated by a host of colorful characters that include :

Nick's wannabe nemesis, Vermont Senator Finisterre (William H. Macy) is as incompetent as his aide whom he chides for being incompetent.

Nick's real nemesis, Heather Holloway (a stunningly-beautiful-as-always Katie Holmes) of the Washington Probe, who screws him(literally) and then screws him (not literally)

Nick's closest and equally unscrupulous friends (Maria Bello, Davis Koechner) who are his counterparts in the alcohol and firearms corporations

Jeff (Rob Lowe) as 'the man who invented product placement'

The movie does not take sides. It only has fun pitting characters, with lot to lose, against each other and laughs along with us. It is fresh, witty, intelligent and an hour-and-half well-spent.

Inception explained

(Read my previous blog for the movie review)

Nolan's laws of Inception:

First law:

Once an idea gets hold of your mind, it grows on by itself. The idea itself can be original or planted. The catch is, the idea should be simple enough not to attract attention from the planted mind, because if the mind realizes that it is not an original idea, it will fight/discard it.

Second law:

Dream time is slower than real time. Since multi-level dreams (dreams within dreams) are possible, the deeper the dream, the slower is its time and hence the longer it is.

Third law:

Dying in a dream causes one to wake up in the parent dream. However, dying in a dream cannot wake up a sedated dreamer; he gets lost in a "limbo"

A few definitions..

Limbo:

If a dream is deep enough, a few hours in real time can equate to decades in a dream. Such a long dream-state is called limbo.

A man waking up from such a dream would be physically young, but mentally very old. There are high chances of brain-death too.

(As the movie begins, a very aged Saito is rescued from limbo by Cobb, by convincing him to kill himself)

Projections:

When a dreamer enters a dream world, he fills it with his memories of objects and people. Memories of people are called projections. Projections always turn hostile if they recognize an intruder.

(Cobb's projection of his wife stabs the young architect, an intruder, in the dream)

Architect:

The one who creates the dream world. An architect always create huge, puzzling dream worlds to avoid encounters with the dreamer's projections.

Extractor:

The intruder who, along with the dreamer, enters the dream and solves the puzzle i.e. finds the hidden secret. Extractors should not to attract attention, or else they would be hunted down by projections. Their common trick is to act as one of the projections.

Forger:

One who can disguise himself in a dream as another person.

Cobb(Leonardo) tries to steal secrets from Saito's(Ken Watanabe) mind and fails. Saito however is impressed by Cobb's expertise and offers him a job to do inception on Fischer Jr.

Idea to be planted in Fischer Jr.'s mind : "My father wants me to break up the company"

But they should follow the First Law - one simple idea at a time.

First level dream :

Fischer Jr. is tricked into this dream on the the plane. In this dream, Cobb acts a kidnapper asking Fischer for his dad's locker key.

However Fischer Jr.'s mind is trained to fight extraction and hence Cobb and his team come under heavy attack.

Idea planted : Fischer's dad has hidden something in his locker.

Second level dream:

This dream within dream starts in the truck as they try to ecape in level-one. In this dream, Cobb acts approaches Fischer Jr. at a bar and convinces him that he is his protector against extractors. He wins his confidence by revealing to Fischer that they are in a dream meant to extract Fischer's secrets. Cobb also makes up a story that Fischer's godfather is behind this, by using the forger disguised as Fischer's godfather

Idea planted: Fischer's godfather does not want him to find out what is inside the locker.

Third level dream:

This dream within dream within dream starts in level-2 when Cobb convinces Fischer to enter his godfather's mind to find what is in the locker.

What Fischer does not realize is that he is actually entering the mind of the forger disguised as his godfather. Hence what Fischer finds in the dream - his dying father asking him not to follow his footsteps - is actually a lie.

Mal:

Cobb's wife who has spent over 50 years in limbo with Cobb, building and living in their dream world. She commits suicide when she wakes up in reality, believing that she would wake up in her dream world, which to her is the real one. She tries to force Cobb into following her by naming him the cause of her death.

Cobb's memories of her are of those trying to convince him to follow her to their dream world, hence in all of the dreams that Cobb enters, her projection always tries to sabotage the plan. This is also the reason why Cobb does not architect the dream world, because if he does, his wife too would know the solution to the puzzle.

Cobb, who is constantly plagued by guilt at having caused his wife's suicide, reveals that it is his inception on her that caused her to question her reality.

Totem keeps rotating in the end. It could mean any of these:

- the whole thing is a dream i.e. what we thought was a 3-level dream could actually be a 4-or-more-level dream.

- Nolan is winking at us or, the greedy producers want a sequel.

A more effective ending:

The only thing that Cobb believes absolutely is his totem. If his totem was somehow compromised, he would mistake himself to be in a dream and would have killed himself to wake-up - just like his wife did. This would have added a sense of irony and a degree of pathos to the story.

Inception - a review

Rating: 4/4

Dreams and the subconscious, two interrelated and uncontrollable facets of the human brain, are at the core of Christpher Nolan's devilishly clever and deliciously complex thriller, Inception. It is a fact that dreams are a result of imagination woven around memories lodged in the subconscious mind. In other words, dreams have access to even the deepest of secrets locked away in the mind.

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor - one who can steal secrets from a victim's mind. He does this by creating a dream world and tricking his victim into participating in the dream. The victim, who is unaware that he is in a dream, populates the dream with his memories. Not surprisingly, Cobb is employed for corporate espionage. However his latest employer, Saito(Ken Watanabe), already knows what his competitior, Fischer Jr. is upto. Saito wants Cobb to do inception - change the competitor's mind by planting an idea, which can effect favourable results to Saito.

Cobb and his team enter Fischer Jr's (Cillian Murphy) dream only to realize that it is not just a dream: its a nightmare. Fischer's calm and polished exterior is counter-balanced by his mind, assault-trained to thwart any attempts of extraction. Exacerbating the situation are Cobb's own ghosts from the past that threaten to sabotage the mission, and a risk of permanent dream state.

The structure of the movie is not unlike the first Matrix movie, where the first hour of the movie is spent explaining an ingenious premise, the rules, the risks, and the rest of the movie where the action takes over. Whereas the latter half of The Matrix was pure eye-candy, Inception requires us to invest our intellect throughout. The action scenes, though not a match for the stylish slow-motion stunts in Matrix, are innovative. Nolan ups the excitement by brilliantly intercutting four parallel action scenes, each one happening in a different dream.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who has not had a single misstep in years, turns in a terrific portrayal of Cobb as a guilt-ridden husband and a desperate father willing to risk anything to get his last job done. The rest of the cast including Joseph Gordon Levitt (500 Days of Summer), Ellen Page(Juno), Ken Watanabe(Last Samurai) deliver good performances. Cillian Murphy underplays his emotions to a sinister effect. Hans Zimmer's score generates a sense of urgency to the proceedings which are already in full-throttle; this is particularly evident in the second half of the movie.

The teaser ending is sure to inspire collective gasps from the audience and also leaves room for further sequels, but it could have been more effective (read about it in my next blog).

At a 148-min run time, this movie leaves you, as one of my friends put it, exhausted and exhilarated. Highly recommended for people looking for an intellectual thriller in the lines of The Matrix, Memento, Minority Report. A re-watch would be rewarding but unlike Memento, is not mandatory. Nolan's interpretation of dreams would leave even Sigmund Freud cheering.