Red Cliff

This Chinese battle film was originally released in Asia as a two-part, five-hour epic. That’s how much director John Woo had to say about the 208 AD war that changed China’s history irrevocably.

This English-subtitled version of half that length is no less monumental. The actual battle was a war of over a million men with arrows and heavy armour, and impressive CGI and clever editing give you a good idea of the scale and intensity of the clash. However, as with movies like Braveheart, the battle scenes dominate the two and a half hours, which, for a peace lover like myself, is more than taxing.

If you love battle movies, there’s no doubt you’ll love this. More than that I really cannot say.

Rating: 3 outta 5.

Mother and Child

I totally underestimated this film. A story about adoption and how it affects our three main characters just didn’t excite me. A few minutes in, however, and I was totally engrossed.

Our three women – Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington – are all immutably changed by their respective liaisons with adoption. Their pain is tangible, but understood only by random acquaintances that serve as a fleeting reprieve to reality. The characters are totally believable and say more through nuance than words, making the performances of these actresses extremely intense and moving.

It’s heavy, I won’t lie, and will leave you feeling like you’ve had your heart scrubbed clean with a nailbrush, but it’s worth the trip.

Rating: 4 outta 5.

X Games 3D: The Movie

As the title suggests, this movie is about the X Games that are sponsored by ESPN every year, which kind of makes this more of a promo for the Extreme Sports Network and less of a documentary.

It follows that if you’re interested in extreme sports you’ll probably love the movie, especially because it’s in 3D. If not, you’ll probably still be entertained and somewhat horrified by the big jumps and near-death experiences. You might not, however enjoy the “deep” stoner-type statements about life, like, “If you don’t push yourself, your soul does.” Can I just say that cheating death does not qualify anyone to become a philosopher, no matter how many concussions you might have endured.

It’s a spectacle of tricks, not an award-winning screenplay. Prepare yourself only for this and you won’t be disappointed.

Rating: 3 outta 5

The Edge of Darkness

There is one plus to this film: Mel Gibson is finally acting his age, which, I must say, is impossible to hide under all those wrinkles. He plays the father of an activist daughter who is killed on a visit home. Conveniently he’s a homicide detective and in no time at all gets himself into the middle of a very complicated political conspiracy. Yeah, you know the kind.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen before and nor is the character With Nothing to Lose. I will concede, however, that there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. It will keep you guessing. It will keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the movie, and it will make you forget what a bigoted PR nightmare Mel Gibson has been in the past few years. I guess that’s worth the price of a ticket for most.

Rating: 3 outta 5.

Séraphine

If you’re an art film fan, this is one you simply must see. Séraphine was a French fine artist of the purest kind. Untrained and painting purely out of a need to express an undeniable talent, she was discovered by a German art collector who was visiting the hotel she worked at as a cleaner.

After scrubbing floors all day, the poverty stricken Séraphine would gather clay from the fields and blood from the butcher and use them to create her masterpieces by night. After encouraging her and promising to return, the German was forced to flee France during the First World War. On his return 10 years later he spots the artist’s work at an exhibition, and it is better than ever. The artist herself, however, is not.

As with so many artists, Séraphine struggled to bridge the cavernous gap between the beauty and solace of her imaginary world and her reality, and ended up dying in a mental institution. Her story and the film are inspiring, touching and memorable.

Rating: 4 outta 5.

Back-up Plan

I wish someone would just tell Jennifer Lopez, categorically, that she can’t act and should stick to making music. Seriously – why be great in one career and painfully dull in the other?

In this ridiculously far-fetched story she plays a woman who decides it’s time to get pregnant, so employs the services of her best friend and an insemination clinic to do the deed. And then she meets the man of her dreams, who just happens to be gorgeous and accepting of the fact that she’s knocked up. Are you serious?

This throwaway film is nothing more than a lazy excuse for a bad sitcom and is most definitely not worth your 50 bucks!

Rating: 2 outta 5

Badmaash Company

A gang of young things want to get rich quick (don’t we all?). The difference between them and us is that they actually go ahead and try, in a somewhat shady way, and so follows their escapades from Mumbai to New York and Las Vegas.

Of course, in addition to a good disguise, living the life of a hustler requires a massive dose of glamour, so expect sexy women, gambling, drinking and partying to form the basis of this rather pointless script.

The young things in question are Karan (Shahid Kapoor), Chandu (Vir Das), Tenzing aka Zing (Meiyang Chang) and Bulbul (Anushka Sharma), firm favourites on the movie circuit but none of whom show their best form here. This is an undemanding, mindless movie – the kind that you choose when you’re too hungover to focus on anything else.

Rating: 2 outta 5.