Crew: A Case Of Crash Landing On Cue

Crash Landing On Cue

Despite the casting coup with its leading ladies, Crew commits a cardinal sin: it forgets to have fun. Ishita Sengupta writes.

Dir: RA Krishnan

Cast: Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kriti Sanon

Playing in: Theatres

RAJESH A KRISHNAN’s Crew, a heist comedy, is too taken with its cast. On paper, this makes sense. The film stars Tabu, Kareena Kapoor and Kriti Sanon — three leading female actors whose coming together in a film thrives with promise and challenges the marketing norms which tout male actors as more feasible. Logistically too this feels like a rarity. All of them are commercially viable and tied up with individual projects, making a joint venture such as this a singular proposition. But in doing that, the outing commits the cardinal sin: it forgets to have fun.

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As a result, most things feel manufactured. When the characters are having a good time, they show that they are having a good time. Alcohol spills from bottles and they look into the camera and steal a smile. When they are scared of getting caught, they nervously twitch as their gaze meets ours. And when things go awry, someone’s grandfather dies and another loses her car. A lot in Crew is for show, but tragically there is little to tell.

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Marvel-ises The MonsterVerse

Godzilla x Kong is simultaneously the stupidest movie of the MonsterVerse and its smartest yet, writes Rahul Desai

Dir: Adam Wingard

Cast: Godzu & Kong

Playing in: Theatres

ADAM WINGARD’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the fifth film of the MonsterVerse, and a direct sequel to Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). It is absolutely nothing like the retro-cool Kong: Skull Island (2017) and the impossibly cinematic Godzilla (2014); there’s no time or space for aesthetics. The trashy spectacle, so-inane-that-it’s-insane action and overstuffed-CGI pieces put peak-Michael Bay (replace the transformers with…animals?), peak-MCU and peak-Jurassic World to shame. That’s a lot of shaming.

Reviews are futile, of course, because who won’t watch a giant ape argue with a giant dino-fish? This is a franchise that my teenage self often fantasised about, not least because it could shamelessly merge the best and worst of two of my favourite franchises — Planet of the Apes and Jurassic Park — and pass it off as one reckless nightmare. But Godzilla x Kong is — how do I put it? — simultaneously the stupidest movie of the MonsterVerse and its smartest yet.

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Patna Shukla: Raveena Tandon-Starrer Is Ingenious But Derivative

The jaded tonality and the derivative montages drown out the potential that Patna Shukla possesses and make it seem like any other film revolving around a career woman

Dir: Vivek Budakoti

Cast: Raveena Tandon

Stream on: Disney+ Hotstar

VIVEK BUDAKOTI’s Patna Shukla is new wine in an old bottle. Headlined by Raveena Tandon, the film plays out like everything we have watched before — while holding out a glint of originality. The problem is neither the form nor the tone props up the buckling ambition of the film. Instead, the jaded tonality and the derivative montages drown out the potential that the premise of Patna Shukla possesses and make it seem like any other film revolving around a distinct protagonist: a career-centric woman.

Take for instance the rigour with which the film restricts itself to a template. The story centres on Tanvi Shukla (Raveena Tandon), a lawyer in Bihar who is equally proficient at home. She irons her husband’s shirt (a restrained Manav Vij), makes breakfast for her son, and chases his school bus on a scooter when he forgets to carry his tiffin. There is little about Tanvi that is told but there is little that needs to be said. Her husband is supportive without making a fuss. When his friends and their wives come over for dinner, he indirectly belittles Tanvi to make the other women (all homemakers) feel better about themselves. The judge in the lower court (the late Satish Kaushik) eats ladoos made by her and says without irony that she cooks better than she argues.

— I.S.

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Cast Your Eyes O'er This Fine Game That's More Than Zodiac Filler

Inspired by real-life astrologer, occultist and herbalist Simon Forman and his casebook, Astrologaster provides a fascinating (and oft hilarious) window into late 16th-early 17th century England. Harsh Pareek reviews.

WHEN IT COMES TO video games, there is no dearth of historical fiction, especially within the action-adventure genre. The expansive Assassin's Creed franchise to the various AAA titles set during the two World Wars, to the likes of Ghost of Tsushima and Red Dead Redemption 2, are just a few among them.

What one does not often come across is a comedy set in Shakespeare’s London. Enter developer Nyamyam's narrative adventure, Astrologaster:

The year is 1592, and a plague ravages through the capital. Just when all hope seems lost, one gentleman rises to the occasion and discovers a cure. A cure, found not in lab experiments or books of science, but in the stars. For this is no ordinary doctor, but one of Astrology and Physick, Simon Forman. A man destined for greatness, surely?

Alas, up ahead lies a thorny path riddled with real doctors hell-bent on exposing him as a fraud. But Forman is determined to prove the sceptics wrong and win a medical licence. All with the help of letters of recommendations from his patients, whom he aids not only with their sicknesses, but also with personal matters, ranging from romantic affairs to societal manoeuvrings and voyages to the New World.

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