Grey_rainbow Reviews

Sugar (2024– )

Liked the show a lot and loved it after Episode 6

[10/10 · 5 May 2024]

Everything--the title card, music, acting, story, characters, etc.--in the show is darn good and makes it a great detective show. This detective show is itself pretty good. But they have overlaid it with very intriguing spy + sci-fi layers. These distinct layers have so far been combined well. I found Sugar to be a unique show and very engrossing. There are many ingredients in the show that can make it a great show. But got to wait and see how it ends before I can call it a 'great show'.

PS: Most of the good-to-great sci-fi shows in the last five years have come out of Apple. Sugar is another addition to that list. Keep churning out these gems Apple+ and please don't make any more those big and dumb monster sci-fi shows.

Shōgun (2024–2026)

For the 1st two episodes, it's "Shogun", thereafter it's "Blackthorne and Mariko"

[8/10 · 3 April 2024]

The first two episodes were great and some of the best TV I had watched in the last couple of years. But, as it progressed, the show started to diverge away from the best aspects of the show- the feud and the politics. Now, the whole show has turned into a romance drama revolving around Blackthorne and Mariko. Things pertaining to Shogun are in the backdrop. I had to fast forward 5-10 minutes of an episode last week out of boredom. That's how stretched out the later episodes feel compared to the first two.

I hope the next episodes would be better but have a feeling this will feel more and more like a family drama.

Kaatera (2023)

The best movie of Darshan by a wide margin

[10/10 · 12 February 2024]

Darshan's movies have always been puerile and below average. But in the last few years some of his movies were really good in parts, but still failed to be good ones overall. Kaatera is the first movie of Darshan which is pretty good as a whole and has very few skippable scenes. The story, script, and the making are outstanding. It revolves around caste and poverty based oppression and a massy hitting back by Darshan's character. The action set pieces and choreography were well made.

I could see where the movie was going within the first 10 minutes and assumed it would be a bore fest. But I was so wrong. The movie went exactly where I predicted it would go, but it was very engrossing, except for maybe about 10 cumulative minutes in the middle. Most of the boring parts were those revolving around the heroine. I wish they were better written, so that she left a good impact by the end as she is not just a romance-and-songs character in this movie. In fact, other characters could have been also better written. They don't grow on us, and so, we don't care too much about them. There are some on the nose and preachy dialogues, they should have been subtle or witty or hard-hitting. But these are the things that could have helped push Kaatera towards greatness. I am actually very happy as I watched a Darshan's movie that was really good, finally. It's been a long time since I watched a good movie from Sudeep/Shivrajkumar, hope they follow in Darshan's footsteps soon.

The thing that bothered me the most: The main message of the movie is to not bow and never lose self-respect. Ironically, throughout the movie, Kaatera's fellow village men bow to him and act like they are his unequal subordinates who have to revere him and idolize him all day, and even call him a god at some point. I hope our writers will one day realize that one can respect a person without having to kowtow.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023– )

It's not about talking, it's what they are talking about

[3/10 · 16 January 2024]

The whole show is snooze fest. There are edge of the seat thriller sci-fis where people talk for long and not move an inch. So, this show is bad not because of all the talking the characters do, but because of what they talk about. There isn't one interesting conversation, one single memorable line whenever the teens talk. When the adults talk, when it's not about the monsters, it's equally boring. And when it's about the monsters, it's 50-50. So, the only thing that could have saved the show was the godzilla and it shows its head only a couple of times. The old-timey story could have been riveting, (it was indeed riveting for an episode or two), but that too devolves into the cliched people-at-the-top-are-morons-who-can't-add-or-subtract story. If you fast forward 90%of the show, it could actually be 5/10 show.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023) Season 2, Episode 9

At first, I said, "really?" and then enjoyed it thoroughly.

[10/10 · 4 August 2023]

Not even in my wildest of dreams did I imagine myself watching a musical without skipping forward all the songs.

But to my utter shock, I went twice back, just to watch the singing Spock! Holy cow, did the subspace wave jump out of screen and hit me too?

The music, rhythms, and lyrics were all pretty good and contagious. This is my first ever sci-fi musical, and I am impressed. Spock's tragi-romance song was the best, I absolutely loved it. It's already in my playlist.

Don't fall for the low ratings and skip this episode. It's not even remotely as cheesy and cringey as some reviewers are suggesting it to be.

Asteroid City (2023)

Self-indulgent and soporific

[6/10 · 3 July 2023]

Wes Anderson seems to have forgotten that colors, style, symmetries, actors' brand value.... are no substitute for a solid story and good dialogues. The most humorous dialogues in the whole of movie are the ones we saw in the trailer and that says a lot about the rest of the movie. By the time I reached the end of the movie, I nearly slept off.

There were no emotional hits like in many other Wes' movies. Though this was touted as a sci-fi, it was not (I hated this more than anything else) and I couldn't derive any excitement from this aspect. Meta-ness in the movie is plebeian at best. And the story + dialogues, the soul of the movie, were below, not Wes Anderson's average, but Hollywood's average.

To me, the trailer was far more exciting than the movie.

Extraction II (2023)

What a waste of solid action sequences

[5/10 · 17 June 2023]

The action is done pretty well, especially the sequence that starts in a prison is intense and keeps you at the edge of the seat throughout. The rest of the action sequences are all also solidly done. But the story is painfully boring, characters are flat, and the teen boy is infuriatingly stupid and annoying. The last one, the-dumb-character-driving-the-whole-story kills the whole movie. The climax was very underwhelming. Actually, you can skip the whole climax (after a couple of explosions) and you wouldn't miss anything worth your time.

And finally, coming to the worldbuilding and teasing about something-big-is-coming, if the makers are reading this, nobody cares or even remembers. No one cares anymore about even MCU movies, the father of teasing and worldbuilding. Please stop with this trend, it's done to death, and start making good standalone movies. Let the sequels of popcorn action movies be unplanned and almost unrelated, like Bond movies, Rambos, MIs or Expendables.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Better than last Strange and Thor movies by a huge margin

[7/10 · 19 April 2023]

After the bitterly disappointing Thor and Strange's latest movies, I didn't even bother to go to theaters to watch Quantumania. I regret it now. This is the movie I shouldn't have missed. I had loved Loki and given the trend, I assumed Disney was going to utterly ruin Kang and Lang like they did Thor and whatever role Bale played. But they didn't, completely. They ruined Ant-Man a bit. Kang too was not as enigmatic and intense as he was in Loki, but yet he shows huge potential as a very powerful character by the end. So not all hope is lost. I hope Disney latches on to this thread hereafter and ditches whatever they did so far after Endgame.

Head Bush (2022)

A step down after Aa Dinagalu and Edegaarike

[6/10 · 31 January 2023]

Agni Sridhar's book/story based Chaitanya's Aa Dinagalu and Sumana's Edegaarike were both extremely well written, directed, and acted. I was expecting something better or at least, equally good from Headbush since it's the genesis story- the birth of a very complex, grey, and bloody underworld in Bangalore. But I was greatly disappointed as Headbush felt like a run-of-the-mill, plebeian underworld movie.

Throughout the movie I could see the poor direction everywhere. Be it the flow of the story, the way the scenes are cut, dialogues, the way the characters act, the way they speak, they behave, their decisions, the protagonist's 'star' moments, the very obvious foreshadowing of a deception, the politicians' mannerisms, etc. Everything was naive and amateurish. The story of Urs, his attempts at solving caste/class struggle, Indira Brigade, the birth of Jayaraj... are all quite complex and nuanced. But in the hands of the current director, they look silly and blunt.

And that's just about the underworld of 70s and 80s. In addition, Agni Sridhar's interpretations should be presented with elegance, intelligence, poetry, and a touch of philosophy. That's what set his two previous movies apart from every gangster movie made in India. In Headbush, let alone the characters from or "caught" in the underworld, even the politicians at the top sound and look like cheap caricatures of an 80s cheesy cop movie. I hope Sridhar brings back someone like Chaitanya or Sumana Kittur for his next story and let go of the part-2 of Headbush.

Hunters (2020–2023)

An ok-ish series, except the 7th episode of 2nd season, which is pure genius

[6/10 · 18 January 2023]

If you can suspend the most basic common sense and stop wondering why not a single agent of CIA, Brits, Mossad, KGB, etc. Ever turn up, not even at the very end, you can enjoy the show, although with a bit of help from the fast forward button in some sappy parts.

But, buried deep inside this mediocre series, there is a gem, a brilliant episode that shines bright and stands so tall on its own that I believe most of those who have watched it will call it one of the greatest episodes of TV in the last couple of years- The Home, the 7th episode of 2nd season. If the entire show had that tone, vibe, atmosphere, and those Wes Anderson-ish colors/symmetries, the series would have been an instant classic. Do not miss that episode. One can even watch it without watching anything preceding it as it's a stand-alone episode (though you will see a big spoiler at the very end).

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Soulless, underwhelming climax, but still one time watchable.

[7/10 · 3 January 2023]

The CGI, landscapes, action sequences are all absolutely breathtaking. If CGI was anything like that of say MCU or DC movies, Avatar-2 would have been just a 5/10 movie. That's how good the CGI looks. But the drama, story, dialogues are, at best, average.

The movie could have been easily an 8 or 8.5/10 if the climax was bigger and more engaging. I presume, James Cameroon has held back the big things for the 3rd part. But that's the biggest letdown for this movie as the climax here seems very small, in scale and impact, compared to part 1's.

James Cameroon knows how to push the emotional buttons of his audience. For example, no matter how badly people badmouth Titanic, the movie haunts us long after watching it. Avatar-1 too, to a lesser extent, managed to evoke some cathartic emotions in us. But in Way of Water, everything falls flat. I was not emotionally invested at any point. Only that I was wowed by beautiful landscapes and mesmerizing underwater shots. When someone dies, it doesn't hit us at all; when someone wins, it makes us only a little joyous; when someone survives, we don't feel relieved and so on.

Despite all that, I was glad I watched it. Because Avatar-2's big screen experience was pretty good and should not be missed.

PS: I found IMAX 3d to be not worth it. If I had an option, I would have just watched it on IMAX 2d as 3d makes the screen feel smaller than it actually is, thus somewhat ruining the big screen experience.

The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)

Not as bad as the ratings

[6/10 · 25 December 2022]

If you love fantasy and adventure, then you will love this show. It's better than most fantasy shows produced in the last several years. Though the CGI looks cheap in some scenes, the show is still far far better than Amazon's abominable LoTR, Willow, Star Wars shows, MCU shows (except Andor and Loki, of course) and all those high-budget teen drama fantasies Netflix has produced.

I think only those who have read the books will be unhappy. I am the one who was gravely disappointed with even LoTR's Fellowship movie and all it took for me to curse the movie was them to not show Frodo wander without direction with the ring in Shire for decades. I wisened up and assume that a movie/show and a book bear resemblance only in the title, titular characters, and maybe 10% of the story. That's the only way to enjoy a novel based movie/series and it works like a charm.

If you are a person like me who can enjoy a well-made movie/series and think of them as variants of what you have read from a parallel universe, then don't miss this show. It's a good watch. And if you haven't read the books, you will love the show even more.

National Treasure: Edge of History (2022–2023)

Unbelievably bad, couldn't even last 20 minutes

[3/10 · 16 December 2022]

I didn't believe the ratings as I saw many reviews were from the toxic RW, who seem to have no job other than bringing down anything that has a woman or non-caucasian person in the lead. But after I started watching, oh boy, it was so bad that I gave up after about twenty minutes and came here to wash that horrible after-taste off by writing a scathing review.

I am not making this up, but the big opening moment in the series where they show the protagonist as a genius in solving puzzle is her converting a large number of days into years, months and leftover days!!! The rest of the twenty minutes is even worse- full of puerile and inane stuff. I thought the original National Treasure to be weak and unintelligent. But in front of this series, those two movies sound like the Principia.

Save yourself some time and don't watch. Or watch and leave a review telling how long you lasted. That's the only fun we can get from this series.

Rick and Morty: Full Meta Jackrick (2022) Season 6, Episode 7

Obfuscating to look clever

[5/10 · 22 November 2022]

There is a big difference between clever and obfuscated, and this episode is more of the latter than the former. It is so needlessly obfuscated that you could lose your patience easily. I did, I had to pause a few times to just hear what Rick was saying. That's a bad sign. It means the writers are running out of ideas and now just want to appear clever. The meta-ness in the episode was pretty high and at some point, it was so meta that it stopped being fun. After seeing meta fourth wall breaking things a gazillion times, it no more looks like a clever tool to most of us. Hope the show gets better hereafter and that the writers stop cramming clever-sounding empty long dialogues.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Would have been 10/10 if they had focused just on Shuri and Namor

[7/10 · 13 November 2022]

Black Panther 2 is easily the best MCU movie this year, so don't miss it.

What worked for me: 1) Shuri: Given how the recent Strange and Thor have been utterly ruined, I was quite skeptic on whether she can carry Black Panther's mantle. But she and the writers have done a terrific job. She is now the perfect Black Panther and there is no other female superhero in MCU that comes close to her right now.

2) Namor, Talokan and underwater people: Like Killmonger, here too the "villain" is very well written. I was rooting for him more than I did for Killmonger in part-1 and was wishing for him and his people to not lose or die. The underwater people are a force to reckon with. I am eager to see them more in the next movies.

3) Of course, the main story and character arcs. They were beautiful and will stay with you long after the movie ends.

What didn't work: 1) The girl in iron suit: Didn't work even for a second and she was a big misfit in the whole movie.

2) Martin Freeman: I never got why there is even Martin Freeman here other than to be called a colonizer (I am still not 100% with those jokes either and I am not Caucasian, if you are wondering).

3) Julia Dreyfus: Her character is literally pointless in the movie and her villainy is as transparent and cheesy as that of the villains in campy superhero shows of 80s. Again, a big misfit in a world where even all the big villains aren't black, but quite grey.

BTW, the things that didnt work didnt stop me from enjoying the movie. They were minor annoyances in a very engrossing story. They didn't distract me enough to think about them for even a minute.

When I left the theater, after greatly disappointed with Thor and Strange movies, I felt a new hope for MCU. Hope Dinsey doesn't ruin it for the sake of their mostly horrendous shows.

House of the Dragon (2022– )

Leave the palace grounds at once, there is a mysterious world out there

[10/10 · 26 September 2022]

Six episodes in and still there is no intrigue, no air of mystery, and no hints of exciting future. All because the series is refusing to leave the palace grounds and explore the fascinating world that we all had fallen in love with. The crab lord (or whatever his name was) was the only small glimpse of the intriguing westeros we have got so far. There are infinitely more mysterious things that GoT couldn't cover or the writers can freshly imagine. But for some reason they want to revolve around the kingly/queenly affairs, which by themselves will be boring and end up as a run-of-the-mill political story. I sincerely hope all these episodes are just a setup and we get to go on an outdoor adventure in the future. But if it's too far in the future, there won't be any interest left among the viewers and HBO won't renew it.

PS: I love how some episodes jump several years. Such jumps allow the characters and stories to mature quickly. Hope the writers use it as a tool for some clever storytelling and surprises.

Vikrant Rona (2022)

Same strengths and the same exact flaws as Rangitharanga

[6/10 · 28 July 2022]

Vikrant Rona could have been a great thriller. But it falls quite short. Set design, art direction, cinematography, and of course, Sudeep's acting are all pretty brilliant. The main core of the story is also not bad. Where it fails is in the execution.

We get to revisit Kamarottu again. You will be pumped up at the beginning. But then it devolves pretty quickly. The climax is much better than the rest of the movie though.

The things that went wrong with the movie are-

1) Romance: This kills the movie singlehandedly. It's slow, uninteresting, too long, bores the heck out of you by killing the main story's momentum a thousand times.

2) Songs: They are ok-ish, but every one of them feels out of place and unnecessary.

3) The movie's characters and their mannerisms are hyper-urban and their conversations use too much of fine English/Hindi for a story set in the middle of a place like Kamarottu. I hated this in Rangitharanga and hated it even more in VR. (Sudeep/Anup can learn a thing or two on this aspect by watching movies of Rakshith/Rishabh/Raj Shetty.)

4) One of the climax's big reveals can be seen right away in the beginning. The director's attempts to hide it becomes annoyingly way too obvious.

5) The small things that further degrade the movie are the cheap jump scares, terrible jokes, cliched horror-movie scenes, forgettable dialogues, poor acting by Nirup Bhandari, and too much of melodrama.

Despite all these negatives, the movie has some great moments, and they show the potential of the director. I hope he does a better job in his future ventures.

The Old Man (2022– )

One of the best series?

[10/10 · 16 July 2022]

Yes, at least in my list. The direction, writing, dialogues, music score and of course, the actors are all at a whole other level in this series. The level where the best of the best ones like Twin Peaks or Succession live. The action sequences too were quite intense and leave a lasting impression on you. I haven't felt the excitement and adrenaline rush quite like this (by 'this' I mean when Jeff Bridges brawls with some agents in the pilot or an assassin in a later episode...) even in any of the MCU flicks since Infinity War. In my opinion, the best part of the series is the arc around Abbey, Chase, Harold, and Faraz's lives in Soviet era Afghanistan. The place where it takes place is mesmerizing, the story is very intriguing, and the ambience transports you to another world. Lastly, the conversations are quite poetic throughout the series. They remind me how some carefully crafted words can carve a noble warrior out of a vicious savage.

The only thing I didn't like in this show is Zoe. Hope the character has some important role to play in the future. But so far (6 episodes in) she is a misfit, an outsider separated so far from every other character's world that she feels more like a tourist photobombing the views of the show's fascinating universe instead of being a part of them.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Not even 10% as good and creative as Ragnarok

[4/10 · 14 July 2022]

After mucking up Multiverse, MCU continues the trend and ruins Thor (once again). The first two Thor movies were terrible. Then came Taika and gave a whole new exciting, quirky, and colorful life to Thor via Ragnarok (who served well in Inifinity War and Endgame). But, like the last Strange's movie, Thor too devolves way far below the expectations. I now firmly believe that this is the beginning of the end of MCU's successful run.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Part V (2022) Season 1, Episode 5

Can it get any worse? Yes, it can, proclaimed Episode-V.

[3/10 · 16 June 2022]

The same childish and silly things that have marred Obi-Wan so far continue in this episode too. The action sequences are bad too except for a surprisingly excellent one involving Vader and a spacecraft. The story and twists all are treated with puerility, and the parallel flashback story is embarrassingly on the nose.

PS: Surprised that this episode is rated so high. It shouldn't be.

Triangle (2009)

Why hide when you can scream and talk?

[1/10 · 12 June 2022]

The title is my whole review. I tried to overlook the annoying and outright stupid characters but couldn't last 5 minutes after the second act began. For those who haven't watched, just ignore and watch something better, like the paint dry.

Knock Off (1998)

I didn't expect to enjoy this movie so much

[6/10 · 11 June 2022]

On a lazy weekend, when you have nothing else to watch, give this a try. You wont regret. I thought I would stop watching after the first 5-10 minutes, like I always do with a dumb-action movie, especially the 90s ones. But this was surprisingly entertaining. At many points, it feels like a Jackie Chan movie with Van Damme substituting Jackie Chan.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Star Wars universe now revolves around Disney's new little princess

[3/10 · 1 June 2022]

Among the shows that could have easily been good or great, this is the worst. The kid in the series is annoying as heck and talks a lot. The chase and action sequences are so poorly made, I wonder whether they even looked at what they were making. The story and screenplay are terrible. The only interesting and good thing in the series so far is Kumail's character Haja. But his screentime is too short to save this otherwise terrible show where the not-old Obi Wan somehow is weak, can't fight and can't trick the minds.... oh, and also, the still-very-young Darth Vader can't use force on an unconscious human if there is fire between them.

PS: When Darth Vader appears in Rogue One and walks through rebel soldiers like a hot knife through butter, the hairs on your back stand straight up for hours. When Luke meets Dark Troopers in Mando, oh boy, I have no words to describe the excitement we feel. When Obi Wan meets Darth Vader here with their light sabers beaming blue and red, you won't feel a thing, not even a small goosebump. That's how bad the show is.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Until credits start rolling, you won't believe the movie has ended

[5/10 · 7 May 2022]

I was not bored even for a minute. But near the actual end, I just kept thinking, there must be more, no way Strange's solo movie can end like this. I genuinely thought it was a false flag op by Sam Raimi, you know the kind where the Godzilla suddenly raises up and we get to see 30 minutes more of the movie, the meat of the movie. But, to my utter disappointment, the credits started rolling. It felt like first half of an excellent movie instead of a full movie.

To make it worse, neither the climax nor the post credit scenes got me half as much excited as I used to get before Endgame. If this is the plight of a Strange's movie, I guess MCU's devolution has begun.

PS: Strange saying 'Things just got out of the hand' in the trailer was either missing in the movie or I missed it somewhere in the middle.

K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022)

KGF 2 (and KGF-1 too) will forever be known as emotions

[10/10 · 16 April 2022]

I am writing this after my second viewing and have to say I loved KGF-2 more the second time. And I already have an urge to watch it one more time very soon. The feeling you get after watching this movie cannot be evoked just by the story, script, bgm, epic scale, spectacle, gorgeous cinematography, humor, actors, or emotional scenes. They all are necessary, but more importantly they also have to blend well. KGF-2 blends them all so well that it lingers around for a long time with you. The impact is so deep that you can't watch any other movie for a few days. And that's what compels you to watch KGF-2 again and again, until you overdo it.

That's my review, that's my way of saying that KGF-2 is not a movie, but an emotion, just like KGF-1.

Some may not connect to KGFs at emotional level. I feel bad for them because then KGFs would look to them like a string of flashy/humorous/emotional scenes in an epic backdrop involving a complex war for the throne and gold. They would find it to be a good movie (based on technical aspects, story, and other parameters), but not a great movie and definitely can't understand those of us who call it an emotion.