War for the Planet of the Apes starts with a war. But before that, the movie opens with multiple paragraphs on the screen which you have to read quickly to get the context.

Humans are afflicted by a deadly virus which makes them lose their power of speech and at the same time, the apes are getting more intelligent and acquiring power of speech. Hence the army of Humans want to eradicate the apes before the table turns.

This is the third movie in the Apes series and it uses a recent technology of Motion-capture, also called Performance Capture. This technology records Human movements and uses it to animate digital characters.

The chief Ape is enacted by Andy Serkis who has become famous in these kinds of motion capture acting. And he has conveyed “Human-Like” emotions while playing Caesar. His is a compelling performance which makes one root for the apes.

 

Today I saw Movie Jagga Jasoos. First day First show. And with howling and shouting and hooting college crowd. To avoid them I bought the absolutely front row seat for Rs. 85. Leaving the entire front row, Growels Screen 2 was houseful. The movie didn’t worth that much.

The movie starts with theaters. Katrina opens the show explaining about Jagga and showing four or five comics. (Next time I’ll carry a notebook). Those comic books are the life story of Jagga.

Then the movie shifts to Purulia Arms drop of 1995 and some aviation history held my attention. But not for long. The story didn’t build. It crashed like the arms dropping from the sky.

The story went into loops and meandered into some very very poor man’s Sherlock Holmes. And it remained there.

The movie was so drab in the first half that the audience laughed at silly things, probably to get their money’s worth. I could sense that. There were cat calls for Ranbir but none for Katrina.

Ranbir is good and after “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara”, I consider Katrina a very competent actor. Both were wasting their time in this movie.

After three comics, Katrina said, “Let’s have a break”. I didn’t wait to see the remaining comics.

I ran away.

 

Although I tried to search the name of one movie on Internet and I’ve also tweeted my query to some prominent movie reviewers, I’ve still not found the name of the movie which I saw sometimes in mid 80’s.

I think, it was a New Zealand Movie. In that movie, a couple runs a sheep farm and the wife is a veterinarian who castrates sheep. Probably some requirement to stop them from breeding.

Anyway, she and her husband are estranged. So the husband with his gang, in disguise, raids the house and gang rapes his wife.

The wife then starts her investigation and discovers that her husband is the true culprit. She then uses her expertise, anesthetizes her husband and castrates him.
It was a riveting movie and I still remember the drama and suspense. Only I have forgotten the name of the movie.

Similar kind of revenge drama, surely copied from the same movie as mentioned above, was made in 1988. Zakhmi Aurat, played by Dimple Kapadia, who was gang raped and she takes revenge by castrating the culprits  after serving them brandy. Now, in this movie, Dimple Kapadia is a Police Officer. The plot hole is that how, she, a Police Officer, had expertise to castrate and how brandy can make men unconscious. This is debatable.

But like pot holes on Mumbai roads, an Indian audience is immune to plot holes in the script. Probably, they are concerned of high level story arcs, particularly sex and retribution.

Recently, I saw the movie MOM. And a similar story, just rehashed. They are all copying from the same source, the name of the movie I forget.

Sridevi is a great actor. In the first half she showed her class. The first half is filmed well and the movie holds a promise. But when the retribution part starts, mainly after the interval, the movie fails to hold attention.

A part of the story string is taken from a renowned  TV serial, “Breaking Bad”. In Breaking Bad, the chief protagonist making a Poison, “Ricin” from Castor Oil seed. So, in this movie, MOM, they did a twist, and used apple seeds to make cyanide. Good idea, but not effectively portrayed as in Breaking Bad.

The majority of Indian audience probably do not care, or have no interest or do not have exposure to watch great tele-serials like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Sopranos, Orange is the new Black, House of cards, The West wing.

Or probably they do have some sense of logic. That is why copy-paste movies like Zakhmi Aurat, Maatr and MOM as not successful.