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Recent Reviews by Gopinath Rajendran
The Hindu

Gopinath Rajendran is an entertainment journalist and film critic from Chennai with nearly a decade of expertise in reviewing Tamil and English films and television shows. Currently contributing to The Hindu, he previously worked with The New Indian Express.

Films reviewed on this Page

You're Cordially Invited
Wolf Man
Kadhalikka Neramillai
Madraskaaran
Kraven the Hunter
Carry On
Moana 2
Nirangal Moondru
Kanguva
Amaran

You're Cordially Invited
Wedding woes

An in-element Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon battle it out in this comedy of errors that is high on errors and low on laughs

By now, big stars teaming up for a streaming original film — mostly comedy, and made on a budget that makes you wonder about the recovery without a theatrical run — has become a mainstay. What’s been difficult is to shake off the tag that these films offer little entertainment compares to their big-screen counterparts. Films like Prime Video’sYou’re Cordially Invited tell you why this trend is, unfortunately, not a fad. Director Nicholas Stoller, the maker behind comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, The Five-Year Engagement and Bros, is back for another comedy headlined by powerhouses Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. In You’re Cordially Invited, a single father, Jim (Will Ferrell), to get his daughter Jenni (Geraldine Viswanathan) married off, books a small inn on Palmetto Island where he got married years ago. Concurrently, television producer Margot (Reese Witherspoon) finds out that her sister Neve (Meredith Hagner) is planning on marrying and she volunteers to plan the wedding. She books the same Palmetto Island, where she and Neve visited their grandmother as children. Thanks to what can be only called a clerical error, both parties reach the island on the same day to learn about the double booking. While Jim and Margot initially decide to work it out by sharing the premises, their egos, insecurities, miscommunication, and many other mistakes play havoc.

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Wolf Man
Universal Pictures’ horror classic reboot is a howling miss

Despite sticking to practical effects that give enough meat for body horror fans, director Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ lacks the bite and is a far cry from its cult classic original

After the astounding success ofThe Invisible Man, director Leigh Whannell is back to reboot another of Universal Pictures’ most iconic horror titles. While The Invisible Man turned out to be the outing that could have revived the Dark Universe which was shot down after the failure of The Mummy, the filmmaker’s latest film Wolf Man shows why the chances of getting that universe are darker than the films it could have. In the latest iteration of Wolf Man, after getting a “closure” on his father’s sudden disappearance along with the keys to his childhood home, Blake (Christopher Abbott) decides to make a trip out of it to save his strained marriage with Charlotte (Julia Garner). Along with their child Ginger (Matilda Firth), the couple drives to the middle of nowhere when they get attacked by a mysterious creature similar to what Blake had seen 30 years ago. When one of them gets infected while escaping from the monster, the barricaded safehouse turns into a trap.

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Kadhalikka Neramillai
Nithya Menen and Ravi Mohan are brilliant in a breezy romance that opts for moments over magnificence

Nithya Menen and Ravi Mohan headline ‘Kadhalikka Neramillai’, a breezy feel-good romance that leaves you wishing that it had more to offer

‘God works in mysterious ways’ they say, and in a way, love does too. While the romance genre itself is done to death in all art forms, very few Tamil films have captured the intricacies of contemporary relationships and the multiple factors that might have to fall into place for them to work. The latest to join the elusive list is director Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi’s Kadhalikka Neramillai starring the fantastic duo, Nithya Menen and Ravi Mohan. In Kadhalikka Neramillai, Shreya (Nithya) and Sidharth (Ravi Mohan) are two oddballs with diametrically opposite belief systems, only their recent heartbreaks and profession being the common factor between them. While fate brings them together, the meet-cute leads to a dead end. When their paths cross years later, one is now a single parent while the other gets an unwelcome visitor from their past. Whether they put aside their differences and come together forms the rest of Kadhalikka Neramillai.

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All 4 reviews of Kadhalikka Neramillai here

Madraskaaran
Shane Nigam and Kalaiyarasan headline an outdated action drama

Shane Nigam and Kalaiyarasan try their best to save ‘Madraskaaran’, but the film is weighed down by tiresome contrivances

One of the oldest tricks in the cinematic book of twists is introducing car accidents. Tamil cinema’s tryst with it has been a long-standing one. Just a small flip through the memory reminds me of films like Kushi, Kovil, Manmadan Ambu and even recent flicks like Star and Thiruchitrambalam. When it results in impending tragedy for our protagonist or those affiliated with them, most films leave us wishing that fateful day never happened. While the conflict in Shane Nigam’s Tamil debut Madraskaaran also happens to be the same, given the number of times it happens, it’s also the first time one might probably feel that the protagonist should never be allowed to take the wheel and his driving license immediately cancelled.

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Kraven the Hunter
The audience is hunted in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe film

The dubbing is off, the editing is choppy and the VFX unimpressive; the film’s biggest takeaway is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who carries it on his massive shoulders

A long, icy road is the first shot of Kraven the Hunter, the sixth film in the infamous Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Given how all the other films, except the Venom movies, turned out to be fiascos, the very first shot of Kraven felt like a metaphor for the studio’s long and trying journey with Marvel’s IPs. After all, it’s not a lot to work with when you only have characters commonly associated with Spider-Man and you cannot even use the friendly neighbourhood superhero. Despite being far better than Morbius and Madame Web, Sony’s latest and possibly final superhero outing, Kraven the Hunter, still misses its mark by miles.

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Carry On
It’s fight or flight for Taron Egerton

Director Jaume Collet-Serra returns to his tried and tested zone with ‘Carry-On’, a nail-biting yet bang-for-your-buck entertainer headlined by an effective Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman in a new avatar

If you are one of those die-hard cinephiles who believe Die Hard is a Christmas film (along with the first two Home Alone flicks), then Netflix’s latest offering may very well make it to that coveted list of yours. Jaume Collet-Serra, the mastermind behind some simple yet efficient nail-biting action thrillers is back and while he’s not teaming up with Liam Neeson this time, he’s got an efficient Taron Egerton and a cast-against-the-grain Jason Bateman facing it off in Carry-On.

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All 2 reviews of Carry On here

Moana 2
Brilliant visuals manage to keep this uninspiring sequel afloat

Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson’s latest outing, ‘Moana 2’, with its underwhelming story and lack of emotional punch, puts itself several nautical miles behind its much-celebrated predecessor

Moana is back for another adventure! Whether that’s even necessary is a different question considering the first film, which came out eight years ago, was one of Walt Disney Animation films’ best outings of all time and a well-rounded product on its own. Our titular hero became a wayfinder, turned buddies with the demigod Maui by retrieving his fishhook and in due course, took her fellow Motunui people back into the sea as voyagers like how their ancestors once were. Moana 2 puts our heroes back in the open ocean on a new adventure that makes us wonder what’s the sea creature equivalent of a cash cow.

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Nirangal Moondru
Karthick Naren’s comeback vehicle is a trippy and indulgent hyperlink film that almost works

Atharvaa, Sarathkumar and Rahman headline an imperfect yet intriguing tale on parenthood, lost causes and redemption

‘Technicolour’ seems to be the word of the week when it comes to the releases this Friday. If The Colours Within and Wicked from two different corners of the world are technicolour spectacles, director Karthick Naren’s latest outing, Nirangal Moondru, not only makes for an addition to that list but also treats the three-color process as a metaphor for the men who populate its vibrant world.

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All 3 reviews of Nirangal Moondru here

Kanguva
A fiery Suriya headlines Siva’s damp squib of a film

Many intriguing ideas get diluted in this jarring Suriya-starrer that succumbs to convoluted writing and incoherent making

A Roman general, in a bid to expand his base, ventures out into the open sea with his army. Before you think you have inadvertently clicked the link to the review of Gladiator 2, fret not; this is how Kanguva begins. The fascinating story of director Siva’s Kanguva stretches from a legendary island’s hills to the sandy shores of Goa; it even transcends time as its proceedings occur in two different timelines. But whether they amalgamate to make for an intriguing watch is a different question altogether.

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All 10 reviews of Kanguva here

Amaran
Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi march into our hearts with this soul-stirring action film

A pacy screenplay, marvellous performances and excellent technical prowess make ‘Amaran’ a brilliant ode to the resilient families who love their braveheartsamaran-3

“When the guns roar, the arts die,” said celebrated playwright Arthur Miller. Many art masterpieces have been swallowed up by wars but art, like the ever-forgiving land that has caused countless battles, has withstood it all. It has been the blank canvas to paint everything from propaganda films to anti-war movies. While many of them resort to skewed agendas, director Rajkumar Periasamy takes the road less travelled with Amaran, and along with producer Kamal Haasan and powerhouse performances from Sivakarthikeyan and Sai Pallavi, the filmmaker delivers an evocative biopic of Major Mukund Varadarajan.

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All 7 reviews of Amaran here