By Karthik Shankar:
The last week has seen a slew of trailers released for promising films. And it surely seems like movie buffs are in for a treat!
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, we have memories when Star Wars was associated with good old-fashioned fun and not Hayden Christensen’s punch-able face. The first Star Wars teaser tapped into all our inner geeks with sneak shots of a new lightsaber, the X-Wings and that majestic shot of the Millennium Falcon soaring through the air.
The second trailer, which was released to 4000 screaming fans at a Star Wars convention at Anaheim, California, manages to be even more tantalising. Who’s the villain under the mask? On which planet is this taking place? Also, who is the protagonist? Whether it’s Daisy Ridley or John Boyega, Star Wars will make history by having its first female or black lead. Finally John Williams’s fantastic score is its own character in this piece and I can’t wait to listen to the soundtrack.
That final shot of Chewbacca and Han Solo was specifically crafted to make Star Wars fans scream with joy. It’s going to be a long wait till December.
I’m a little torn about this one. There is no doubt that almost anyone on earth would want to watch the two biggest superheroes face off (although Superman would win that showdown in a heartbeat, unless Batman’s suit is made of Kryptonite).
That being said, Man of Steel was an utter mess. It mixed the gritty realism of Nolan’s Batman universe with a superhero who represents optimism and hope (and American imperialism, but that’s a discussion for another day). There was also that awful climax where Superman basically lays waste to New York, and this is a guy who’s supposed to be earth’s saviour.
Still, Ben Affleck seems to be a great fit as Batman and given that this film promises to explore the effect Superman has on the earth’s populace, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It will eventually lead to a Justice League team up and that’s something I badly want to see on the big screen.
This trailer taps into my childhood fear of what would happen if there was a zoo breakout, except in this case it involves dinosaurs, which is ten times more terrifying. It’s great to get back to the world of Jurassic Park. However, all the creativity seems to have gone into the dinosaur designs rather than the characters. How many more films must we tolerate with a loose cannon male lead and an ice queen female lead? Hopefully the actual film will defy stereotypes, but it more than earns a ‘must watch’ on the basis of those money shots alone.
This is the first film to acknowledge that Kangana Ranaut is a star post ‘Queen‘, and treats her as one. That’s why she plays two characters. She reprises her role as Tanu, as well as taking on another, that of Kusum, a Haryanvi athlete. That scene where she unleashes a stream of sentences on Manu is a fantastic showcase for Ranaut’s comic chops. I can’t think of many actresses who could pull that off.
This is not a film that was high on my radar but I’m more than up for it, provided it focuses less on Manu’s creepy obsession with his wife’s doppelganger and allows Ranaut to run the show.
Zoya Akhtar is back after her hit ‘Zindagi Milegi Dobara’. ‘Dil Dhadakne Do‘, is one of Bollywood’s rare family dramedies (the type that would likely star Meryl Streep in Hollywood). The star studded cast makes this a must watch. I just wish Akhtar wasn’t so set on her upper-middle class milieu but as in the case of ZNMD, the exotic locales might add zest to a fairly standard story. All the actors here seem on top of their game. Ranveer Singh and Shefali Shah kill the last scene of the trailer. Hopefully, this is one of those rare movies that affords more than one woman a meaty role.
