It is heartening to see ‘Devi’ theatre, the good old single screen kicking some butt, thanks to a terrific QUBE and CDPL’s 4K installation. ‘Man of steel’ thunders over its excellent sound and digital projection systems. With several single screens closing shop, this is pretty significant. (Venkatesa theatre, where I saw the first ‘Superman’ in the 80s is now a commercial establishment.)

‘Man of steel‘ is indeed a film by the famed duo—Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. While the first part of the film painstakingly creates the conflict within the hero and its resolution, the second part takes you on a mind numbing VFX ride. While the duo deliver on their expectations, it is the comic book character ‘Superman’ that  takes a beating, rather literally and even does a ‘Tarzan’ kind of a yell, when confronted with extreme emotion. For anyone who is as devoted as me to the ‘Superman’ and who reveled in what he could achieve instead of what he was made of, this movie disappoints you both with its length and the manner in which the story unfolds. One of the utterly frustrating aspects of movie is the ‘Man of Steel’ being straight away hurled into the big battle, without any minor skirmishes. You never get a taste and sniff of the cake, and suddenly you are splashed and smeared with it all over your face. With all that father talk about the ‘Superman’ getting ready to save the mankind, and testing his limits, one would have expected a few earthly battles before it turns out to be one giant galactic warfare.

Infact it is this galactic mumbo jumbo starting with the DNA, the codex (did a video engineer coin this term from codec?), energy,  logo of hope, sucking in radiation to grow stronger, weaker core, ecology, conservation et al. that burdens you throughout.  Speaking of ecological conversation, what was our cerebral ‘Man of steel’ thinking, when he goes about like a super fast lawn mower all over the cities.

It is some of these mindless battles that bring out the conflict in storytelling. The new superman is almost a split personality, a brooding Ramachari and an uncontrollable Anniyan.  Guess,  it’s time, one of our Indian directors is given a chance to run the show.

One cannot but escape the fact that how much indianized Hollywood films have become. So many emotions and idiosyncrasies we see in Indian movies are peppered all over the film, much to the delight and dismay of the Indian in me. Need a proof? Let me give you two. How about the ‘Man of steel’ screaming and pushing the villain all the way through a zillion of hectares of corn fields and one hapless petrol bunk, because the villain hit his mother?  Or the scene where heroine walks in with a stylized outfit,  stiletto high heels included, in the middle of a desert? (Please blame it on 4K if I could spot this one)

It will be interesting to see where the sequel takes off from here, with no connecting themes or characters. Or because the movie ended with Clark Kent’s appearance, are we to assume that the triology will actually begin as the sequel? So, what did we just watch then? A trailer of sorts?

Hmm…this was one heck of a lonnggggg trailer then!!!!

Tailpiece:

What Nolan and Snyder, did to Superman (most visbly,  the underwear thing), we Telugus implemented it  a long time back, when our beloved NTR played a super hero role. While the makers during the course of the movie, did not clarify about the ‘H’ logo, my guess is because it was Lord Hanuman who had blessed the young NTR with all the power 🙂 Check out this out of the world video http://bit.ly/13U6xht where he sashays his wonderful outfit and the associated bulges, sings his heart out, and dances with a damsel in distress. All this, without a care in the world. Isn’t this how a superhero supposed to be?  🙂

Related Links:

Hans Zimmer soundtrack on iTunes

The movie ‘Aurangazeb’ raises expectations with three things going for it—Yash Raj films, Arjun Kapoor and an ensemble cast.  But the movie never really takes off. It meanders pretty much like a failed run chase in a T-20 cricket match, with a few sparks here and there, but eventually falling short of the target. One can smell this very early on, when the first ten to fifteen minutes are devoted to narration of two sub-plots by the lead characters, an ominous sign of the writer dominating the director.

‘Aurangazeb’ is written and directed by Atul Sabharwal, that draws inspiration from several films like ‘Copland’, ‘Pride and Glory’, ‘LA Confidential’, ‘The Devil’s double’ , ‘The Man with the iron mask’, ‘Thakshak’ etc. It is essentially a double-role film with an Arjun Kapoor each in two families–cops and mafia. While is the cop family is down right corrupt with a few good men, the mafia family has an ailing don (Jackie Shroff) and his mistress(Amrita Singh) at the helm of affairs.

Arjun Kapoor plays two roles, Vishal and Ajay. Vishal is the docile adopted son of a cop (Anupam Kher) while Ajay is the belligerent heir of the mafia don. What the head of the cop family (Rishi Kapoor) wants to achieve from Vishal taking the place of Ajay? Why Vishal takes up the mission in the first place?  How does the foster brother of Vishal (Prithviraj) choose to redeem himself? Will both Ajay and Vishal make it to the finish line? Writer-director attempts to answer these four questions during the course of the movie and struggles to keep the rest of the sub-plots interfering with them. The girl friend of Ajay (Sashaa Agha) and her involvement with Vishal, and couple of songs serve as strategic time outs, nothing more.

All the elements of movie making–production design, music, movie tone(DI), etc–oscillate between the product of a Govind Nihlani/Anurag Kashyap and that of a mainstream director. It is this struggle that mars the potential of a story that could have worked otherwise. The lead cast bring their might to the table, dialogues sparkle once in a while, and Arjun Kapoor tries his best to deliver an inspired performance, but they are not enough to take the movie to its logical conclusion.

Overall, the movie disappoints. But the audience will look forward to the next outing of Arjun Kapoor.