Full of Beans

With a few smartly crafted twists and turns, Jack the Giant Slayer is the story of Jack (Nicholas Hoult), a spunky if somewhat distracted farm-boy, his muse the Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), and a few knights of the realm of Cloister – notable among them the honorable Elmont (Ewan Mc Gregor) and the nefarious Roderick (Stanley Tucci). When a small escapade leads Jack to possess certain beans, and his paths cross with that of a princess bent on escaping the confines of her castle, the two embark on an unlikely adventure that faces up to the Kingdom of Giants, the stuff of fables brought to a grim reality. Quite the children’s entertainer, and never a dull moment - mostly

11.5/20

Lady Fighter

Beauty and.. er.. brawn mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano gets her first break into big-ticket Hollywood with Haywire. In a movie that is rather understated even as it carries the weight of an all-star cast and pans global locales, Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) recounts a mission where ex-boyfriend Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) sends her off to Barcelona, on a mission directed by US Government agent Coblenz (Michael Douglas) and his Spanish contact Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas) to rescue a man in Barcelona. The mission is not quite what it seems – and nor is Mallory's subsequent assignment to pose as the wife of MI6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender) in Dublin. Mallory has to rely on her own wits and do her own fact-finding in a setup laden with multiple traps. And with the audience on her side, one hopes that she get the better of the nexus in the end. A well-paced introduction to a new action heroine, who will sharpen her thespian skills even as she can clearly hold centre-stage in a tightly scripted Steven Soderbergh thriller

14/20

Of Staring Down Goats and Other Warfare

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a reporter with the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram is devastated when his wife leaves him for the newspaper's editor. A chance meeting in Kuwait with retired Special Forces member Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) introduces Bob to the world of psychic warfare, and a story of their antecedents that sounds too ludicrous to be true. Started by US Army officer Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) during the Vietnam war on the aftermath of a curious event on the battlefield, the New Earth Movement soon had an equally strong and opposed proponent in the form of Bill’s student Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) – the latter not a proponent of the non-violent ways of Bill and fellow-student Lyn. While some experiences are harder to believe than others, Bob and Lyn eventually find themselves in a psychic warfare camp run by Larry, where Bill is a mere depressive inmate. With predictive abilities on coin tosses, splitting clouds, and apparently killing goats by staring at them, The Men Who Stare at Goats is a now-you-believe-it-now-you-don’t expose on psychic warfare that is tailored more for humour than for serious consumption. With deft touches, director Grant Heslov leaves you with just the facts, and your own interpretations

12.5/20

Of Ghosts and Political Intrigue

Never expected an ordinary movie from Roman Polanski. Got as close to one as he has ever made. Based on the novel by Robert Harris, The Ghost Writer (Ewan McGregor) picks up an assignment to write the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a character based, by Robert Harris’ self-admission, on Tony Blair. The Ghost, though somewhat shaken by the fact that his predecessor on the assignment died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, embarks on his intrepid enquires to get to the bottom of the mysteries in Adam Lang’s life. The search for the truth is made more intriguing by the Ghost’s possession of his predecessor’s manuscript – and the several obvious attempts that unknown people are making to dispossess him of the same. Adam Lang, in terms of political affiliation, was indistinguishable from the US in terms of political ideology – but was there more to that aspect than met the eye? And who else was involved in the same? Travel bleak landscapes and sinister people in the Ghost’s search for the truth

12/20

Christendom Overdose

Dan Brown’s eponymous novels clearly do not translate to the silver screen. While The Da Vinci code was merely insipid, in Angels and Demons, the latest edition, the incredulity of generating antimatter in a pilferable bottle in Zurich that Implodes in 24 hours (remember cold fusion in Moscow in The Saint?), the agony of following antagonists that need to commit heinous acts in indecipherable patterns, the casuality of interaction between papacy and the hoi polloi, and the overarching theme of an irrelevant conflict in today’s day and age (Illuminati vs the Church) – if it were not for pleasant movie halls and the visual spectacle that is Rome, this would be agony compared to its predecessor’s light torment. Besides, Tom Hanks is ageing and in a merely ageing kind of way, ie not the graceful Harrison Ford way

9/20

Fish for Life

Not everything your dad said was a lie. Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks!) has a heartwarning tale of a father who is given to, well, minor exaggerations about his considerably exaggerated life, in Big Fish. This movie reminded me of the fraility of the male ego in Beowolf and its constant need for compliment, as well as a sense of passing through history with insouciance in Forrest Gump. The skepticism of his son, and his finally being convinced, touches the heart. No wonder that feelgood movies are getting increasingly popular in the choppy waters that happen to be our lives and times