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Kalki 2898-AD (2024)
Poor choreography, weak writing, and why are they trying to be funny? It's not working.
I was excited to see this movie, to see a well funded sci-fi from India. But oh man. The writing of this story is very weak. There is a lot of wasted time on humor that's not funny at all, and parts of the story that add nothing to it. It's a slog at times, and jumping around at others. Things just happen, and characters just manage to do things without any sense of reasonable logic. The filmmakers expect us to roll with it instead of convincing us that it can make sense in the world they've built. It largely doesn't, unfortunately.
The biggest thing this movie needed was a decent choreographer. One of the early scenes has a shootout, and it's so clear these people are pointing their guns like they've never held one before, just kinda waving it around. There was zero tension during the fight. Even some of the background actors are noticeably unsure sure what to do, or how to react (thankfully the final scene is much improved, but by that point we've squandered nearly 2.5 hours).
Why is this group of people, carrying laser-weapons, running at our unarmed protagonist until they're close enough for him to hit them...when they could have just shot the guy? I mean, it's so bad, guys. It's meant to make our hero look cool, but his choreography makes him look very unskilled at any sort of real combat. Everything he does is accentuated despite it being either lame in reality, or just landing so poorly. The filmmaker wants to shove his "coolness" down our throats instead of earning it through good film-making. It wasn't until about the last 30 minutes until I thought there was hope for the character of our main hero.
Take RRR for example. Those characters do so many crazy things, but the filmmakers really convince us that it's ok for the story they're telling. Kalki does no such thing. Our hero is honestly barely likeable because his dialogue is terrible. RRR had really good character building moments, even when it was being ridiculously over-the-top. This movie has almost none of that. Deepika and Amitabh are more convincing in their roles, but are still hindered by what I think is mostly a writing/directing problem. What it needed was a professional screenwriter.
You get an awesome set, a potentially heavy-hitting story, some decent production value and CGI, a solid visual style...then we get this. Really, this shouldn't have been a "funny" movie at all--I mean, did we all watch the same brutal intro?--but they're trying very hard to make it humorous. They try to do a lot of things that squander this stylistic epic. The last thirty minutes are admittedly far more enjoyable and convincing, but it's hard to forget the time it took us to get to that point.
Kimi (2022)
No grab, poor dialogue and story
An hour in, and nothing has happened, then it ends to no satisfying resolution (because there is so little to resolve in the first place). When something does happen, it's lackluster. Across the bored, it's poorly written. Much of the dialogue and delivery is cringe worthy. The only thing keeping this movie from total flop is Zoe's character. Her quirkiness is intriguing. Everything else is B movie bad. It's like watching a high schooler's homemade film, but there is no underdog to cheer for with its creation (the director has been around for a long time). My recommendation: skip, or wait until you've exhausted all other options.
Blame! (2017)
Interesting premise, terrible writing, boring characters
It's very dialogue heavy, and dialogue constantly repeats, explaining something they just explained a few minutes ago. And dialogue added very little to the story progression, nor to connect us with the characters. Half way through I found myself fast forwarding because I knew I wouldn't miss anything, which is something I never do. Basically every other dialogue line: "Let me explain what is happening even though it is really obvious, then I'll say your name repeatedly even though I'm staring right at you and have your attention." Very little action, lots of standing around, constantly saying each other's names (which was sooo annoying), characters are helpless and get in the way. Bad stuff is happening all around, and we're standing around, or walking casually or repeatedly saying each other's names... The world and animation was interesting but gosh everything else was cringe worthy. Not worth watching, in my opinion, for the interesting premise.
Prometheus (2012)
Very Good Film with a Story that Doesn't Fully Support it's Talent
Prometheus is an enjoyable movie, and one that Ridley Scott should be proud of. His sci-fi style is still exceptional which was probably the best part of the movie for me. However, I was disappointed by the use of time in the film. What I mainly referring to is how preachy it was. This movie really wanted you to know what it was about (questioning your beliefs), and it dragged it down. I feel like more time should have been spent on developing the characters more (especially Charlize Theron's who was very underrepresented by the story and had some of the most potential). Another, some-what character flaw was how characters continued an idea throughout the film (in this case how they didn't). There are certain times where very important things happen but have little to no follow up by the characters. These moments are important to the story, but are ultimately forgotten by the characters after they happen.
The film is very slow to start as well, yet it did not drag. I personally contribute this to the excellent performances by the actors and the filming of it. An excellent plot, with moments in the story that are amazing, but overall cluttered with reiterations of the theme (very obvious ones). So, it's a very good film, but the weak points in the story make me think that we only saw half the potential this movie could have given us (granted, the half we see could be argued as the best in cinema).
I had trouble rating it with a 7 or 8, but the story flaws (mostly in story development and backing) were too obvious to me, and thus I gave it a 7. My review does not fully represent this movie, but basically this movie does things very well and it is worth the watch, but be prepared for those minor disappointments and annoyances in story.