Munjya
- 2024
- 2h 20m
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Makers of Stree bring to you Munjya, the perfect blend of comedy and horror to beat the summer heat for Gen Z, kids, and the whole family.Makers of Stree bring to you Munjya, the perfect blend of comedy and horror to beat the summer heat for Gen Z, kids, and the whole family.Makers of Stree bring to you Munjya, the perfect blend of comedy and horror to beat the summer heat for Gen Z, kids, and the whole family.
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My question to makers: Taras ni aaya audience par?
Munjya (2024) :
Movie Review -
The fourth film in Dinesh Vijan's so-called "horror universe" is here, only to make us believe more proudly that there is nothing called the horror universe; they are just trying to cash in on Stree's goodwill. Actually, I'd like to forget that there were any horror universe movies after Stree (2018) and would love to directly see "Stree 2" as the second film if they really care about the "standard." Roohi didn't even fit in the universe zone; Bhediya was a shocking low for Amar Kaushik after Stree and Bala; and now, Munjya shows another low for the horror universe. What is a horror comedy, by the way? For today's audience, it's about mediocrities like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2; for a certain group, it's Stree; for a little more mature group, it's Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007)-if they couldn't really understand that pathbreaking impact of Manichitrathazhu; for higher-level movie buffs, it's Ghostbusters; and then comes the highest gallantry group of movie geniuses who love Gene Wilder's Frankenstein spoof or Abbott and Costello's horror spoofs or early breakthroughs like "The Ghostbusters" (1940) and "The Cat and The Canary" (1939) or the grandfather of all, James Whale's cult, "The Old Dark House" (1932). Those who acknowledged and ate all those films at weekend dinners can see how low Munjya is as a horror comedy. Today, horror is comedy. That's a statement to keep in mind. Horror and comedy are two different things and should be kept like that. If I try to shake them together, you are sure to spoil the juice. Munjya does that while trying to be overly funny and overly aggressive at the same time.
According to folklore in Maharashtra's Konkan coast, Munjya (the Bramharakshas) is believed to be the ghost of unmarried boys who died within 15 days of the "Mujya" ceremony, inhabiting peepal trees. Munjyas are described as restless bachelor ghosts who roam trees at night, possessing cleverness and multilingual abilities. Our protagonist, Bittu (Abhay Verma), is living in Pune but is haunted by bad dreams of a tree and a Munjya that's bound to it. He loves Bela (Sharvari) but never dared to tell her, making the path clear for Bela's foreigner friend. During his recent visit to his native place and, by mistake, to the Chetukwadi (a place where Munjya resides), he frees Munjya from the tree. This Munjya happens to be one of his ancestors, who wanted to marry Munni but died before that. Now, he wants to marry Munni, and Bittu is forced to help him. His search for Munni ends with Bela, who happens to be Munni's blood relative. So now Bittu must save Bela from Munjya by finding a way to kill the Brahmarakshas.
Munjya's script is scattered into pieces, and it's damn boring and predictable for today's audience. If Munjya was such a powerful ghost, then how can you show humans even trying to fight him like it was a college fight and having conversation as if he were their buddy? I can imagine a 15-year-old boy being too aggressive about marrying a girl and doing all that black magic stuff, but how can someone ask me to believe it's all done by a 10- or 12-year-old boy? Muniya's basic variant looked too underage to pull off the entire idea of the film. I couldn't figure out how Bittu found that beating stick after all in the climax. Wasn't it supposed to be lost with his dead grandmother? Firstly, he was a big-time fattu, and Munhya was a big-time goon, so the face-off wasn't really convincing. We all know that stuff about finding courage, finding our own strength, and all that. Many filmmakers have done that over a hundred times, including Sarpotdar himself in his own Faster Fene (2017) and Mauli (2018). Ok, so which mom goes on a trip with his son and his friends without any reason and at that place where she never wanted to come back? Those kiddish play games by Munjya at Bittu's house were so annoying. They just killed all the chances of me fearing evil. I was rather taking it as a spoof of Munjya and the terrible voiceover and characterization they have done here. Never for a moment, I thought that Munjya was going to scare me. Not even once.
Speaking of performances, Sharvari did look promising with Bunty aur Babli 2 and The Forgotten Army, but here, she seemed to be going down. Bela's character was poorly written, and moreover, there was nothing for Sharvari to add to it. It was just like she came on sets, shot her scenes as the writer wrote them and the director directed them, went home, and slept well. No extra efforts, because there was no place for that. Abhay Verma didn't look like a protagonist at all. He was more like a scapegoat who can't do anything, yet he remains alive till the end. You know, Munjya could have killed him within 2 seconds. Character-wise, it was full, but acting-wise, it was pretty okay. Suhas Joshi still holds enough fire, and Mona Singh couldn't find her fire. Sathyaraj is made into a cartoon here, and it's highly disrespectful to his stature. I was kind of expecting a lot of Marathi actors since the film was set in Konkan and it was being directed by Aditya Sarpotdar. I was happy to see so many Marathi faces, but sadly, they all went overacting. Overall, I can say that Munjya has to be the weakest and least known casting unit in the horror universe.
The music here is terribly disappointing. I still remember those hit songs from Stree. Roohi destroyed my childhood memories of Shamur, and Bhediya went away with a pretty good album. Compared to the previous films, Munjya has the weakest music album in the horror universe. The cinematography captured some beautiful shots of the Konkan coast and that remote island of Chetukwadi. Pune is easy to catch on camera, and it looked too intentional most of the time. Munjya's background score is painfully loud. A horror film can't go wrong with its BGM, but Munjya did. That's just not done. You can't F with this department-not even by mistake. The art design and production were partially fine, and the VFX was a mix of ugliness and gorgeousness. Sarpotdar's sasta Gollum is too poor to be considered a demon in a horror flick. But what to do when you have folklore telling you so? Still, I think the visual effects could have been much better and fancier. Munjya falls flat on both story and storytelling. Had these things been better, I wouldn't have minded much about the screenplay, background score, and acting. Lastly, I only want to ask one question to the makers: Bhai, taras nahin aaya audience pe? I hope, Stree 2 gives a new life to the dead horror universe now.
RATING - 4/10*
The fourth film in Dinesh Vijan's so-called "horror universe" is here, only to make us believe more proudly that there is nothing called the horror universe; they are just trying to cash in on Stree's goodwill. Actually, I'd like to forget that there were any horror universe movies after Stree (2018) and would love to directly see "Stree 2" as the second film if they really care about the "standard." Roohi didn't even fit in the universe zone; Bhediya was a shocking low for Amar Kaushik after Stree and Bala; and now, Munjya shows another low for the horror universe. What is a horror comedy, by the way? For today's audience, it's about mediocrities like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2; for a certain group, it's Stree; for a little more mature group, it's Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007)-if they couldn't really understand that pathbreaking impact of Manichitrathazhu; for higher-level movie buffs, it's Ghostbusters; and then comes the highest gallantry group of movie geniuses who love Gene Wilder's Frankenstein spoof or Abbott and Costello's horror spoofs or early breakthroughs like "The Ghostbusters" (1940) and "The Cat and The Canary" (1939) or the grandfather of all, James Whale's cult, "The Old Dark House" (1932). Those who acknowledged and ate all those films at weekend dinners can see how low Munjya is as a horror comedy. Today, horror is comedy. That's a statement to keep in mind. Horror and comedy are two different things and should be kept like that. If I try to shake them together, you are sure to spoil the juice. Munjya does that while trying to be overly funny and overly aggressive at the same time.
According to folklore in Maharashtra's Konkan coast, Munjya (the Bramharakshas) is believed to be the ghost of unmarried boys who died within 15 days of the "Mujya" ceremony, inhabiting peepal trees. Munjyas are described as restless bachelor ghosts who roam trees at night, possessing cleverness and multilingual abilities. Our protagonist, Bittu (Abhay Verma), is living in Pune but is haunted by bad dreams of a tree and a Munjya that's bound to it. He loves Bela (Sharvari) but never dared to tell her, making the path clear for Bela's foreigner friend. During his recent visit to his native place and, by mistake, to the Chetukwadi (a place where Munjya resides), he frees Munjya from the tree. This Munjya happens to be one of his ancestors, who wanted to marry Munni but died before that. Now, he wants to marry Munni, and Bittu is forced to help him. His search for Munni ends with Bela, who happens to be Munni's blood relative. So now Bittu must save Bela from Munjya by finding a way to kill the Brahmarakshas.
Munjya's script is scattered into pieces, and it's damn boring and predictable for today's audience. If Munjya was such a powerful ghost, then how can you show humans even trying to fight him like it was a college fight and having conversation as if he were their buddy? I can imagine a 15-year-old boy being too aggressive about marrying a girl and doing all that black magic stuff, but how can someone ask me to believe it's all done by a 10- or 12-year-old boy? Muniya's basic variant looked too underage to pull off the entire idea of the film. I couldn't figure out how Bittu found that beating stick after all in the climax. Wasn't it supposed to be lost with his dead grandmother? Firstly, he was a big-time fattu, and Munhya was a big-time goon, so the face-off wasn't really convincing. We all know that stuff about finding courage, finding our own strength, and all that. Many filmmakers have done that over a hundred times, including Sarpotdar himself in his own Faster Fene (2017) and Mauli (2018). Ok, so which mom goes on a trip with his son and his friends without any reason and at that place where she never wanted to come back? Those kiddish play games by Munjya at Bittu's house were so annoying. They just killed all the chances of me fearing evil. I was rather taking it as a spoof of Munjya and the terrible voiceover and characterization they have done here. Never for a moment, I thought that Munjya was going to scare me. Not even once.
Speaking of performances, Sharvari did look promising with Bunty aur Babli 2 and The Forgotten Army, but here, she seemed to be going down. Bela's character was poorly written, and moreover, there was nothing for Sharvari to add to it. It was just like she came on sets, shot her scenes as the writer wrote them and the director directed them, went home, and slept well. No extra efforts, because there was no place for that. Abhay Verma didn't look like a protagonist at all. He was more like a scapegoat who can't do anything, yet he remains alive till the end. You know, Munjya could have killed him within 2 seconds. Character-wise, it was full, but acting-wise, it was pretty okay. Suhas Joshi still holds enough fire, and Mona Singh couldn't find her fire. Sathyaraj is made into a cartoon here, and it's highly disrespectful to his stature. I was kind of expecting a lot of Marathi actors since the film was set in Konkan and it was being directed by Aditya Sarpotdar. I was happy to see so many Marathi faces, but sadly, they all went overacting. Overall, I can say that Munjya has to be the weakest and least known casting unit in the horror universe.
The music here is terribly disappointing. I still remember those hit songs from Stree. Roohi destroyed my childhood memories of Shamur, and Bhediya went away with a pretty good album. Compared to the previous films, Munjya has the weakest music album in the horror universe. The cinematography captured some beautiful shots of the Konkan coast and that remote island of Chetukwadi. Pune is easy to catch on camera, and it looked too intentional most of the time. Munjya's background score is painfully loud. A horror film can't go wrong with its BGM, but Munjya did. That's just not done. You can't F with this department-not even by mistake. The art design and production were partially fine, and the VFX was a mix of ugliness and gorgeousness. Sarpotdar's sasta Gollum is too poor to be considered a demon in a horror flick. But what to do when you have folklore telling you so? Still, I think the visual effects could have been much better and fancier. Munjya falls flat on both story and storytelling. Had these things been better, I wouldn't have minded much about the screenplay, background score, and acting. Lastly, I only want to ask one question to the makers: Bhai, taras nahin aaya audience pe? I hope, Stree 2 gives a new life to the dead horror universe now.
RATING - 4/10*
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- SAMTHEBESTEST
- Jun 6, 2024
Details
- Runtime2 hours 20 minutes
- Color
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