Tag Archives: Walton Goggins

Tomb Raider (2018)

Tomb Raider Review

written by Anu Gopinath

Tomb Raider: Rome was not built in a day and no superhero paid heed to their true calling without going through the tests of life and making the ultimate sacrifice!

My Ratings: 2.5/5

The movie franchise that sky rocketed Angelina Jolie to her stardom reboots with Alicia Vikander playing the title character! In all Tomb-Raiderfairness the movies with Jolie in the lead had her already established as the well known adventurer and told the story of one of her many adventures. But director Roar Uthaug has delved too deep into the storyline for this reboot which concentrates on the early life of Lara Croft and tells the story of making of the legendary adventurer. And that’s where the movie scores!

Vying for throne left vacant by Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Trilogy) and Angelina Jolie – it is no less than a herculian task but Alicia Vikander shoulders the responsibility with an amazing ease and panache that screams volumes of her talent.

And her claims to the throne is truly justified as she backs it up with the stunning portrayal of a woman who is in the cusp of being elevated into the greatness, yet riddled with insecurities and self doubts. Her punches are misplaced, her arrows miss the targets and her bouts, tapped out!

She absolutely delivers the goods by portraying the vulnerability of a lost child, the strength of a daughter whose father makes the Tomb-Raiderultimate sacrifice and inevitably, the acceptance of her true calling!

This time the film Tomb Rider goes deep into the earlier life of Lara Croft and examines her relationship with her father, played brilliantly by Dominic West, thus establishing the reasons and sacrifices that made Lara Croft who she is and whom eventually the world have come to know.

But though the movie starts on a promising note, it soon loose its way due to lack of a strong storyline or for that matter, a strong villain character! And this ultimately becomes the movie’s undoing!

The visual effects is at par with the best in business but lack of action or the scarcity of it and a weak supporting cast drags Tomb-Raiderthe movie down like dead weight. The world is yet to see the talent that Walton Goggins is and though an accomplished actor, he by no means could shoulder the responsibilities that comes with playing the negative character of a Tomb Raider franchise. And that’s where Angelina Jolie movies score higher!

With Wonder Woman laying the foundations and ultimately setting a bench mark for how an origin movie should be told, Tomb Rider falls desperately short of expectations though there are a few highs that the audience can take home with!

Is Tomb Rider a good origin-movie? Yes! Is it a good movie? Debatable! It’s a question only time and a great sequel will answer!

Poster courtesy: www.imdb.com

The Hateful Eight (2015)

The Hateful Eight review

written by Souranath Banerjee

A western in Tarantino style – enough said already!

My Ratings: 4/5.

The Wyoming winter at its peak, surrounded by knee-deep snow and tormented by blinding blizzards, literally at the middle of hateful-eight-posternowhere there is a place called Minnie’s Haberdashery!

And that is where a bounty hunter and his prisoner (among others) goes to take refuge from the treacherous weather, but little did they know that the dramatic events of that single day will change their lives forever.

Narrated by Quentin Tarantino the director himself, the film The Hateful Eight (also Tarantino’s eighth film, hence the name) is a story that revolves around the core dilemma of whom to trust and whom to kill?

The bounty hunters Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell, the prisoner hateful-eight-poster2Jennifer Jason Leigh and then the rest of the dubious characters Walton GogginsTim RothMichael MadsenDemián BichirBruce Dern and James Parks all under the same roof and under the same cloud of disbelief and conspiracy.

Acting level is again top class, the brutality and the raw ferocity of the characters is what drives this film till the end.

Shot entirely in the Ultra Panavision 70 process, in an aspect ratio of 2.76:1, using the very same 65mm film that shot the chariot race in Ben-Hur (1959), The Hateful Eight is undoubtedly a cinematic triumph and cinematographer Robert Richardson certainly made sure of it.

hateful-eight-poster3Original soundtrack, written and composed by Ennio Morricone, now that’s a first!

If you adore the so called ‘Tarantino way of film making‘ – extreme violence with contrast background scores, the blood-thirsty diabolical characters with their own backstories, cheesy yet stylized dialogues and innumerable graphic deaths at regular intervals – then there is hardly any chance that his eighth film will disappoint you!

Then again, just to make sure, why don’t you take a look at it yourself? And if you look closely enough Channing Tatum will reveal himself, I promise!

Poster courtesy: www.impawards.com