Deadpool Movie Review

Reagan Gavin Rasquinha, TNN, Feb 11, 2016, 04.17PM IST

CRITIC'S RATING: 4.0/5

AVG READERS' RATING: 4.2/5

CAST:               Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, Karan Soni, Gina Carano, TJ Miller, Stefan Kapicic,                      Brianna Hildebrand

DIRECTION:   Tim Millers

GENRE:           Adventure

DURATION:   1 hour 50 minutes

STORY: 

Wade Wilson (Reynolds) is a former special forces operative who makes a living as a mercenary. Life seems pretty good for Wade until he meets Ajax (Skrein), a twisted individual with his own evil plans. Ajax performs an experiment on Wade that gives the latter a set of superpowers. But this gift comes with a price and Wade seeks out Ajax to exact revenge.Deadpool traces the origin story of an unlikely, but extremely entertaining superhero.

REVIEW: 

Right from the opening credits itself you'll find yourself realizing that this is the kind of superhero movie which is definitely different. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to say that it is a much-needed shot in the arm for the superhero genre in general. While there has been no shortage of comic book hero adaptations into film in recent times, Deadpool is one with a difference. For one, it breaks the fourth wall - that barrier between the film and the audience. This results in the kind of viewer involvement that is both endearing and extremely refreshing.

We find out about how Wade Wilson came to be a superhero via a series of jump cuts, flashbacks and oodles of humour. And then there's Wade's girlfriend, the feisty Vanessa (Baccarin) who is as messed up as he is. While their brand of romance has to be seen to be believed, their chemistry manages to be downright kinky to say the least, but delightfully enough, very real.

Wade's buddy Weasel (Miller), a barkeep, is also his wingman. And when both Wade and Weasel share screen space, they're a laugh riot. While the rest of the cast is suitably funny (don't miss the fantastically-named Negasonic Teenage Warhead, played by Hildebrand), this really is Reynolds' moment in the sun all the way. He surely has come a long way since 2011's very ordinary Green Lantern. In fact, what elevates this movie to another level is not just the snarky one-liners, but the plethora of cross-references to a lot of other superhero films as well. Supported by a very clever script, Deadpool is deliciously irreverent, subversive and uproariously funny.

Plot Summary

Wade Wilson is a mercenary who spends his time in New York City protecting teenage girls from would-be stalkers. He meets female escort Vanessa Carlysle and they become romantically attached for nearly a year when he suddenly collapses one night and is diagnosed with multiple organ cancer. He reluctantly leaves Vanessa to undergo an experiment to cure his cancer, only to be injected with a special serum by Francis Freeman and subjected to days of torture methods by Angel Dust for his mutation to kick in. When Wade is strapped into an airtight chamber, the drop in oxygen triggers a healing factor that removes his cancer, but severely disfigures his face and skin in the process. He escapes from the secret laboratory, but as he cannot come to terms with his complexion, he keeps himself away from Vanessa. Wade moves into the home of an elderly blind woman named Al, and with the advice of his best friend Weasel, he becomes a masked vigilante named "Deadpool".

Following a string of leads from various syndicates, Deadpool attacks a convoy of cars on an expressway before getting his hands on Francis, demanding for a cure to his disfigurement. The confrontation is suddenly interrupted by the X-Men Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who wish for him to join the team. Their intervention enables Francis to run off, and when Colossus handcuffs himself to Deadpool on their way back to the X-Mansion, Deadpool cuts off his own hand and escapes back to his home.

The next night, Weasel convinces Deadpool to go back to Vanessa, but when they arrive at the strip club she works at, Deadpool discovers that she has been kidnapped, and Francis and Angel Dust tell him to meet up with them on a decommissioned aircraft carrier at a scrapyard. Deadpool convinces Colossus and Negasonic to help him, and the trio take a cab to the scrapyard, where Colossus and Negasonic have a grueling battle with Angel Dust while Deadpool slashes through an army of goons on his way toward Francis. Both Deadpool and Francis engage in a bloody hand-to-hand combat before Negasonic uses her power to destroy the aircraft carrier. Despite pleas from Colossus to spare his enemy's life, Deadpool kills Francis before he reconciles with Vanessa.

Jil Jung Juk Movie Review

CRITIC'S RATING :3.0/5

AVG READING RATING :2.9/5

CAST :            Siddharth, Avinash Raghudevan, Sananth, Radha Ravi, Amarendran, MG Sai Dheena, Bhagavathi                      Perumal, Naga, Bipin, Nasser, RJ Balaji, Jasmin Bhasin

DIRECTION:  Deeraj Vaidhy

GENRE:          Comedy

DURATION:   2 hours 13 minutes

SYNOPSIS: 

Three bumbling underlings who are tasked with smuggling cocaine get into problems during their journey.

REVIEW:

 Deeraj Vaidhy, the debutant director of Jil Jung Juk, seems to belong to that rare breed of filmmakers in Tamil cinema — one who uses visuals to tell his story. Aided by his cinematographer Shreyaas Krishna, he gives us flamboyant visuals (the film is set in a not-so-distant apocalyptic future), which are further enhanced by Vishal Chandrashekar's boisterous score (that, at times, drowns out the dialogues). In that sense, the film heralds the arrival of a promising talent. But, the film, as such, is somewhat of a minor let-down because the writing is not as strong as the visuals and, while it is definitely offbeat and brave, it doesn't feel as ambitious or as remarkable as it wants us to take it. The film has an attitude that is instantly likeable but look beneath all the coolth and the quirks and what we see is a plot that is formulaic and even predictable.

Here, Jil (Siddharth), Jung (Avinash) and Juk (Sananth) are tasked by their boss Deivanayagam (Amarendran) with getting a car containing cocaine from one place to the other. But they lose the car in spectacular fashion, and decide to pass off a similar-looking car as the actual one. During this effort, they run into trouble with Deivanayagam's rival, Rolex Rawther (Radha Ravi) and Attack (Dheena), a drug supplier. So, they plot to pit them against one another and get away unharmed. But will their plan work?

The jerky narrative follows a structure that we have seen in some of the black comedies (Neram, Moodar Koodam, Burma and Naanum Rowdy Dhaan) over the past few years. We have a lead who aspires to punch above his weight, his sidekicks who are funny and weird in a good way, ganglords who are bitter rivals waiting for an excuse to shoot down each other, goof-ups, misunderstandings and a climax where the leads manage to save themselves by pitting the various players against one another. This could still have worked, but we are hardly able to get the dire situation that the leads are in. One reason for this is that, in his efforts to give us eccentric villains, Deeraj makes them less threatening.

There are some big laughs, courtesy the excellent duo of Avinash Raghudevan and Sananth, and Bipin, who nicely plays off on the Harahara Mahadevaki WhatsApp viral audio series. But the problem is that they aren't consistent. For every joke that works, there is an equally laboured (the bit involving Rawther's prostate cancer) or dull one (the scene where the trio try to pass off a drug addict as some from Uganda). To some extent, the director offsets such disappointments by providing us with a steady stream of quirkiness — Jil's blue-streaked hair, Juk's colour blindness, a cocaine-coated car that is in bubblegum pink colour, butterfly effect, film references (one involving Karagatakkaran's Soppana Sundari joke and the other, a mandatory hat tip to Ajith), animated sequences that play out like cartoons and comic book frames, and a shoot-out that plays out over a funky Carnatic musical piece, but the climax, which is over-stretched and cliched, leaves us with a film that we admire but cannot wholeheartedly fall in love with.

Azhagu Kutti Chellam Movie Review

CRITIC'S RATING: 3.0/5
AVG READERS' RATING:2.9/5

SYNOPSIS: 

The lives of several individuals in the city criss-cross, thanks to children, who offer them a chance at redemption.

REVIEW: 

USING A MULTI-STRAND NARRATIVE, DEBUTANT DIRECTOR CHARLES WEAVES A HEART-WARMING TALE WITH AZHAGU KUTTI CHELLAM. THE CENTRAL STRAND INVOLVES A BUNCH OF ENTHUSIASTIC SCHOOL KIDS WHO TRY TO STAGE A PLAY, FOR WHICH THE NEED A REAL BABY, TO HELP THEIR PRINCIPAL (SURESH) SECURE FINANCING FOR THEIR SCHOOL. ONE OF THE BOYS, MURUGU, IS FROM AN ORPHANAGE NEARBY, WHERE THEIR CHILDLESS TEACHER (VINODHINI) HOPES TO ADOPT A BABY. FOR JAYAN, THE DIVORCE OF HIS PARENTS IS LOOMING AHEAD. THEIR SRI LANKAN TAMIL FRIEND, DILEEPAN'S UNCLE AND AUNT ARE GRIEVING OVER THE LOSS OF THEIR CHILD IN THE CIVIL WAR. MEANWHILE, NILA (KRISHA), A CHESS PLAYER, HAS BECOME PREGNANT BUT JOHN, HER BOYFRIEND, IS TRYING TO EVADE MARRYING HER. AND THERE IS AN AUTO DRIVER (KARUNAS) WHO YEARNS FOR A BOY, WHICH LEADS HIS WIFE TO DUMP HER NEW-BORN GIRL, THEIR FOURTH DAUGHTER, IN A GARBAGE DUMP. THE LIVES OF THE CHARACTERS CRISS-CROSS AND SOMEHOW, THE CHILDREN — BOTH THE SCHOOL KIDS AND THE NEW-BORNS — OFFER THEM A CHANCE AT REDEMPTION.

There are times when Azhagu Kutti Chellam looks like a made-for-TV movie and the initial scenes, especially those involving the school children feel similar to TV serials like Kana Kaanum Kaalangal. The staging is also soap opera-ish and in an attempt to make the film look less like a TV drama, the director gives us visuals that are over-reliant on filters, at times giving the film an Instagrammed look. Some of the performances are just functional — the exception is Karunas, who is fantastic and walks away with the film — and we keep wishing for subtlety in the acting. There is also the track involving the Sri Lankan couple, which seems to have been shoehorned into the narrative just to score some political brownie points. And we are expected to dismiss the numerous leaps of logic and the spoon-feeding of messages.

And despite these flaws, the film manages to sneak up on us, and we begin to care for the various characters. Composer Ved Shanker Sugavanam uses the haunting theme track to great effect and makes the scenes come alive while Charles manages to ratchet up the tension by nicely juxtaposing the lives of the various characters. Some of it feels overdone and the final suspense about the missing child is badly staged but by then, we are so moved by the emotional force of the narrative that we do not care and let ourselves be overwhelmed with emotions.