Godzilla Minus One [dir. Takashi Yamazaki]

You have to wonder, when Ishiro Honda helmed the first Godzilla film in 1954, did he have any inkling at the time of the enduring cinematic icon he was to forge? 70 years and 37 films later (and that's discounting the American studio films), his monstrous reptilian creation has been villain and hero, monster and god. In Honda's original film, Godzilla personified the horror of the destruction wreaked upon Japan  by nuclear explosives. It was a serious melodrama punctuated with memorable scenes of monster destruction. Later installments brought a more comic-book sensibility. Godzilla, either as destroyer or protector, grappled with other outsized creatures or technological threats in battles that increasingly resembled costumed wrestling bouts. 2016's Shin Godzilla was a return to roots for the franchise, re-emphasizing the big G as a nigh-insurmountable force of destruction upon humanity. My only issue was that the film's satire on the red-tapism of  Japanese bureaucracy while dealing with the Fukushima crisis took up huge swathes of the narrative without being dramatically interesting.

The long gap till the next live-action Godzilla feature was primarily on account of a no-competition agreement between franchise owner Toho and Hollywood based Legend Entertainment who'd obtained a license to make their own set of Monsterverse pictures featuring Godzilla with other giant creatures in more technologically advanced versions of the costumed wrestling bouts. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic further postponed the project from 2019-2022. But it would seem that the additional time was well used by writer director Takashi Yamazaki, because at least in my humble opinion, Godzilla Minus One (GMO) has the best human drama in a Godzilla film since the 1954 original.

Set in the aftermath of WW2, when Japan is still reeling under the loss of the war and the untold destruction of the atomic bomb, the film is yet another reboot of the giant reptile's cinematic legend. Our protagonist Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot landed on the repair base on Odo island, ostensibly due to technical issues. The aircraft technician Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) rightly guesses that Shikishima has abandoned the mission, not wanting to throw his life away on a lost cause. That night, Godzilla in a smaller avatar emerges from the sea and attacks the base. Shikishima's fear paralyses him from trying to save the island crew from the creature.

After Shikishima returns to a ravaged Japan, he meets young Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a survivor who has adopted an orphaned baby, and they form a makeshift family. But like Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (or its Bollywood inspiration in Amitabh Bachchan's Vijay Pal Singh from Kaala Patthar) Shikishima cannot escape guilt over his cowardice. It colors his whole outlook, reflects even in his choice of profession, clearing deep sea mines off the Japanese coast. In this situation, he faces the return of an old nightmare - Godzilla resurfaces, now several times bigger and more powerful, an angry God laying waste all around while every attempt to counter him fails miserably.

Unlike the Hollywood Godzilla films (and several of Toho's own), GMO's human characters are not dull fodder to endure while awaiting the next episode of monster mayhem. In fact Shikishima's saga of failure and eventual redemption is the main story here, and people looking purely for monster thrills should check their expectations. That's not to say that the film lacks in destructive spectacle, far from it. Director Yamazaki was himself responsible for the visual FX which garnered the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for what it achieved on a fraction of Hollywood budgets. Like in Shin Godzilla, the big G is a unstoppable force. The recreation of the iconic scene from the '54 film where Godzilla attacks a train gives one goosebumps. Shusuke Kaneko's genre-revitalizing kaiju films  from the 90's are also respectfully referenced. The more somber arc of this narrative means that humans must pay a heavy price for the destruction the monster wreaks. But it is in the face of ultimate crisis that from our innermost recesses we dig out hope.

Children of Men [dir. Alfonso Cuaron]

I realize I'm rather late to the appreciation party for Children of Men (CoM), the Alfonso Cuaron film that was released and generated a fair buzz in 2006. There were two reasons for this: I'd read and loved PD James' source novel. When I read that the shy middle-aged academic protagonist of the story had been transformed into some kind of action hero played by Clive Owen, I was dismayed. Secondly, Clive Owen himself. I'd only seen the man in Shoot 'Em Up, a film I didn't care for at all, in which his constantly sullen presence irritated me greatly. Even though I had bagged the Arrow Video blu-ray of CoM in 2021 during one of their site sales, it took me all this while to actually sit down to watch it.

Once willing to see the film as one that takes the bones of PDJ's story but does its own thing, I found CoM quite engaging. Clive Owen is Theo Faron, a depressed alcoholic British bureaucrat in a world with a bleak future. Human females have become sterile, so there are no new children. The last born human beings are treated like royalty and it is a national tragedy when one of them is killed by an angry fan for refusing an autograph. The Britain shown here is a totalitarian regime, a cross between George Orwell's 1984 and Pink Floyd's Animals (referenced with a floating pig balloon straight from the album cover). But it is apparently still better off than other countries in the world, and therefore constantly besieged by refugees of all races, who are rounded up and sent off to camps. The memory of James' novel is very hazy now, but I think the focus on the plight of refugees is of a significantly greater concern in the film (likely an offshoot of Cuaron himself being an immigrant to the US?).

When we first meet Theo, he steps out of a coffee shop where people are glued to TV reports of the murder of a celebrity youth, only for a bomb to go off inside moments later. This act is attributed to a militant group called the Fishes. They are led by Theo's former wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who contacts Theo to arrange transit papers for a woman. Theo later discovers that the woman is a pregnant refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), who Julian wants to escort to The Human Project, a secret organization working to reverse the infertility phenomenon.

Early on in this mission, Julian is killed in an attack, an audacious scene brilliantly orchestrated by Cuaron and DoP Emmanuel Lubezki. Theo helps to take Kee to the Fishes' hideout in the country, but there he realizes that instead of ferrying her to The Human Project, they plan to hold Kee hostage and use her baby as a prize to negotiate with the government. He gathers Kee and escapes, with the Fishes in hot pursuit. Theo must now protect Kee from both the militants and government forces, and escort her to her destination.

CoM is an action film, but like few others you have seen. After the initial setup in London, a good part of the film is set in the bleak, muddy English countryside, and later in a refugee camp set amidst disused partially broken down buildings. The visuals have a drained out quality to them, similar to Michael Radford's celebrated adaptation of 1984. The script is not afraid to have quiet, off-beat moments, like when Theo hangs out with his pot-smoking hippie friend Jasper (Michael Caine), a former political cartoonist with a catatonic wife. Theo is not your typical action hero, either. After the coffee shop bombing at the film's start he is thoroughly shaken. Later in the several skirmishes, he's no suave and fearless brawler, but a vulnerable man, whose best weapon is his determination to do what he thinks is right. While Julianne Moore's part is a short one, she makes a major impact and you can imagine how the spirit of Julian guides Theo in his actions further on. Michael Caine relishes the rare opportunity to do a laid-back, irreverent character (Apparently John Lennon was the inspiration for his approach).

The contribution of DoP Lubezki cannot be appreciated enough. Several of the film's key sequences are shot as long, seemingly unbroken takes, with the camera taking on the role of a mobile observer, following our characters as they make their way through intense conflict zones. The production design team's creation of a near-future dystopian Britain is also immersive.

It is remarkable that Cuaron and his team convinced Universal Studios to pump $76 million into a British dystopian adventure with a not necessarily happy ending, and no major Hollywood stars apart from Moore, who is offed very early in the film. Sadly, they were not rewarded in terms of box-office success. Still, it is a film that continues to be relevant and deserves to be revisited multiple times.

A few words on Arrow Video's blu-ray, originally released in 2018:

Arrow's transfer, based on an HD master supplied by Universal Studios, gives a strong presentation of the film, which should at least equal Universal's own disc from 2009. The deliberate decision to have a gritty documentary feel with drained out color has a major impact on how the film looks, but there appear to be no encode related anomalies, and grain pattern is tight. The 5.1 lossless DTS-HDMA sound is not as bombastic as some other tentpole films, but several action sequences, like the assault on the car and the escape run through the refugee camp under attack deliver sufficient bass oomph and surround action. Extras on the disc include an audio commentary, meaty video appreciations by noted film writers Philip Kemp and Kat Ellinger, and likely all the extras from the Universal blu (which include a half hour analysis of the film and several featurettes with the cast and crew). My 2021 copy of this 2018 didn't have the first pressing booklet (expected). The reversible cover has original poster art on the other side.

Robinson Crusoe on mars [dir. Byron Haskin]

Robinson Crusoe on Mars was directed by War of the Worlds' Byron Haskin and based on a script by Ib Melchior, who seems to have written several space adventures. Like with recent years' The Martian, it deals with the survival of an astronaut marooned on the surface of the Red Planet. The astronaut is played by Paul Mantee, a buffed All-American type that embodies the hearty golden age SF image of future-age humans visiting and conquering new planets. In a nice bit of misdirection, the character we are first introduced to is his co-astronaut, played by a pre-Batman Adam West, who seems at home with the campily colorful spaceship console design (who knows if part of it wasn't re-assembled into the Bat-computer?). After a space mishap, they both eject out in capsules heading towards the Martian surface. Most of the remaining feature focuses on Mantee.

Of course the depiction of Mars (exteriors stood in for by California's Death Valley) was limited by our awareness of the planet at the time. In this movie, Mars has oxygen (in thinner amounts), water and native edibles. Mantee must gather and ration his resources, so he can survive as long as possible. Since this is an adventure movie in the 60's he has the company with of the ship's monkey - Like Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and Pat Boone in Journey to the Center of the Earth, I was half-expecting Mantee to burst into song to entertain his simian co-actor, but we get away with only some improvised bagpipes.

One of my problems with the film was Mantee's behavior. Early on, it is critical for him to conserve oxygen and not exert himself, since he cannot survive beyond a quarter of an hour in the Martian atmosphere. He even rigs up an hour-glass that will awaken him from sleep when his oxygen levels are about to drop below safe level. But when he sees the place where West's capsule is supposed to have landed, Mantee careens at top speed down the loose pebbled mountain, not even considering the risk of cracking his helmet, yelling like a clueless idiot. It's hard to believe this boob is a trained astronaut and harder still to sympathize with his plight. In a later scene where he meets his Man Friday, his imperialist tone with the stranger is again grating, but thankfully that is dealt with in a cannily subversive way.

Some of the film's most effective moments for me are the long shots featuring the character standing / climbing the gravelly slopes. They are the only parts of the film that convey something of an alien landscape (Some of the matte work is striking but also too obvious). There's one highly effective spooky scene involving an unexpected visitor. The bulk of Robinson Crusoe on Mars is, however, clunky and prosaic. The worst is when Mantee comes across the aliens with their spaceships and their slaves. After Ray Harryhausen's marvelously designed creations in Earth vs the Flying Saucers, these spaceships appear static and the scenes of large-scale destruction feel stock and repetitive instead of thrilling. The aliens are all-too-briefly seen generic spacesuit dudes wielding guns; their slaves are just actors in bad haircuts and cut-price Egyptian outfits. Despite the widescreen ratio and some striking outdoor vistas, the overall feeling is that of a TV movie.

Blame me for falling for the gloriously pulpy space adventure poster art, but in all I felt Robinson Crusoe on Mars promised a lot more than it delivered.

Dahshat [dirs. Tulsi Ramsay & Shyam Ramsay]

Let me say this right off the bat...Dahshat is one of the best vintage Indian horror films I have seen; and I don't mean this in the campy sense, this is one genuinely brilliant movie. The plot as such is a reworking of the famous R.L. Stevenson novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The hero Dr. Samir (Navin Nischol) comes to his hometown after a gap of many years, only to find it has become a gloomy sepulchral place with people afraid to move out after dark and rumors of corpses escaping their graves. Determined to investigate, he discovers a towering hooded grave-robber and a scuffle ensues. This quickly leads to a mob chase in which the dastardly fellow is apprehended. Although nothing can be got out of the fellow who is a mute, Samir's suspicions lead him to the door of the local physician Dr. Vishal.

Dr. Vishal (Om Shivpuri) is a straight port of a Victorian era medical man / scientist complete with frock coat and bow-tie. This Jekyll is dabbling in research to make man "complete" by imbuing him with the heightened sense attributes of various animals. While not inherently vicious, Vishal is an overzealous investigator, not averse to trying out his new researches on patients without their knowledge and consent. He is also an unsatisfied and unfaithful husband to a drunk crone (harangue queen Nadira) with whom he has frequent showdowns. It is during one of these showdowns that the vengeful wife injects him with his prepared serum, which has the effect of converting him into an animal. Thus ensues a saga of horror in which Vishal is forced at various instances to convert to a grotesque hybrid animal form with murderous consequences.

The main strength of Dahshat is the absolutely cracking lifetime performance by Om Shivpuri. This is a brilliant portrayal of the mad doctor archetype, which skillfully avoids the ham trap such roles fall into, and even it's most grotesque moments holds your sympathies for the character. Nadira as the alcoholic wife of the deranged scientist lends great support. The other and equally notable aspect is that apart from a couple of songs and some footage devoted to the idiotic antics of comedian Rajendranath, almost every scene in this movie is propelling the narrative onward at a frantic pace. It also helps that the story provides plausible motive for all the murders the monster commits and not just aimless boob-groping of assorted extras; this is first-rate stuff. The film also has a lot of atmosphere, although some of its location shifts can be confusing. The visual FX are a mixed bag but one admires that the make-up concepts are grounded in the story.

On the whole, Dahshat is a terrific achievement of Hammer-style horror by the Ramsays and one of the few films that lends substance to their reputation as this country's answer to Hammer.

Things to Come [dir. William Cameron Menzies]

Things to Come - the 1936 adaptation of HG Wells' novel The Shape of Things to Come - is an odd film, a combination of wonderful visual wizardry and sense of scale with an awfully stilted and preachy narrative about how socialist-tempered scientific progress is the eternal saviour and great equalizer of mankind. It reminds me a fair deal of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, but less expressionist.
To summarize the unwieldy narrative: The aftermath of a hypothetical Second World War (an uncomfortably close prediction, as history would reveal) brings most of civilization to its knees and nation-states are reduced almost to tribe-like status, with constant infighting and resource shortage pushing them back to the dark age. Somehow in all this an organization called Wings over the World (WotW) has managed to scrounge enough resources for technical superiority and aims to end warfare and unite mankind. Their representative (Raymond Massey) comes to the archetypical "Everytown" where he is thrown into prison by the local Boss (Ralph Richardson, in a performance of utter cartoon villainy). When a renegade engineer passes on this news to WotW, they come in their sophisticated bombers and drop a "gas of peace" which puts everyone to sleep, and then take over with their benevolently dictatorial agenda of peaceful scientific progress.
Cut directly a 100 years ahead to a utopian future, where people live in huge white cities with multi-storey screen displays (Here's looking at you, Blade Runner), poverty and discomfort have been eradicated, and everyone wears togas because apparently the Greco-Roman look is future chic. The scientific head honcho (Massey again, as his own descendant) wants to launch people into space to further the possibility of landing on and someday inhabiting other planets, and his own daughter volunteers (along with a friend's son). But some (rather curmudgeonly portrayed) people are tired of this ceaseless innovation and want the government to stop with unnecessary, perhaps even blasphemous scientific progress, even if it means physically attacking the launch cannon for the space ship (Yep, the rocket is shot off from a giant barrel). Science vs People debates issue forth while the two sides face off against each other till the rocket is launched off. The film ends with a grandiose monologue on the greatness of scientific progress in which Massey asks his friend (and the audience, one assumes), "All the universe or nothingness? ... Which shall it be? ..."
Wells himself wrote the initial treatment and intended to personally steer the production in a manner he felt his work ought to be presented. But he soon discovered the discrepancy between his imagination and the realities of film production (and according to at least some members of the film crew, mostly just stood around and showed more interest in flirting with the women on set). Many crew members that signed on because they admired Wells' novel were rather surprised to find its well-rounded characters and erudite dialog reduced to caricatures and blatant speeches. William Cameron Menzies whose major claim to fame was as a skilled art director, works manfully to bring at Wells' reportedly often vague vision to life, and thus provides the film's strongest asset. The scenes showing wide vistas of archetype futuristic urban-scape are often marvellous (even if the optical work is somewhat obvious now), depicting large populations of people dwarfed by gargantuan sleek structures, and the climax featuring a mob attacking the rocket launch cannon is excitingly staged. People who liked or admired Metropolis should definitely check this one out as well.

Forbidden Planet [dir. Fred Wilcox]

For people that like golden era pulp SF, Forbidden Planet is retro-futuristic mana. The use of miniatures and matte paintings in this movie makes for some spectacular eye-candy, if you aren't spoiled by the technological excesses of today's CG-fests.

The plot is something that could have come from an episode of radio's Dimension X. Leslie (Naked Gun) Nielsen is Captain Adams, helmsman of an Enterprise style spaceship sent to the planet Altair to investigate / rescue a previous space mission to colonize the planet. The only characters the captain and his two lieutenants (hmm, a precursor to Star Trek's Kirk-Spock-McCoy trio?) encounter are Dr. Morbius, a survivor of the previous mission, his naïve daughter Alta and a do-it-all robot called Robby whose absolutely charming suit design (it definitely is a man in a suit) without question inspired the look of the robot from Futurama. 

  

Morbius lives in a swanky pad at odds with the rocky barren terrain of the rest of the planet and has all manner of gee-whiz gadgets that eclipse any of the technology Adams and his men have seen. But there's a sinister side too: According to Morbius everyone from the previous mission except for him and his wife were culled by a mysterious force shortly after they landed on the planet, and it looks like the arrival of Captain Adams' ship has re-awakened an ancient evil.

Forbidden Planet's grasp of technology is classic pulp hyperbole and absurdity, and it makes for an entertaining film, even if you have the odd lame moment like Robby using his built-in chemistry lab to synthesize 60 gallons of whiskey for the cook in Adam's crew. Nielsen does well as the square-jawed swaggering hero and Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Morbius provides an admirable delusional scientist foil. Apart from the afore-mentioned snazzy visual FX, the movie makes huge use of electronic sound and music cues in the soundtrack to bolster the SF factor. Plot-wise it's not as good as some of the better Star Trek (original series) episodes, and certain animation effects may not now inspire the fear and awe the makers were hoping for, but the bulk of Forbidden Planet carries a nice old-skool shimmer that makes it worth for retro-pulp fans like yours truly.

Quatermass and The Pit [Roy Ward Baker]

Having not seen any of the BBC televsion series, my exposure to Quatermass is restricted to two Hammer films, The Quatermass Xperiment and this one. Xperiment had good atmosphere and direction, and I am naturally a sucker for old-skool pulp science-fiction, but it was in the end more monster movie than hardcore SF. The Pit however, has greater ambitions.

The film starts with the discovery of proto-human skulls at a digging site in the underground rail station for this place originally called Hob's Lane (as one of the characters helpfully reveals, Hob is another nick name for the devil). Local science man Matthew Roney believes that the skulls date to a time well before previously known existence of man. More mystery unfolds when the digging crew unearths a metallic compartment never seen before. Colonel Breen and Professor Quatermass come in as the government's military and scientific representatives. While Breen is quick to dub the compartment as an unexploded German warhead, glossing over such inexplicables as why the metal is hazardously cold to the touch and can resist any amount of heat/drilling without disclosing its insides, Quatermass, alongwith Roney's assistant Barbara, undertakes a more holistic investigation, linking events in the local history of Hob's lane to the presence of the alien compartment. The script by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale interprets old superstitions in the light of an alien intelligence and its impact on the human civilization. In fact, The Pit's major idea is that modern man was an engineered product of the aliens as a means of transferring their mindset, and thereby surviving by proxy, when their own race died out. Shades of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey there, but in a far more accessible package.

Roy Ward Baker's direction maintains a serious scientific tone and the solid acting does a lot of service to the immersion factor here, necessary since the props and optical effects are distinctly low-budget and unsuited for the script's ambition. Andrew Keir is a good Quatermass, more pleasant-mannered than Xperiment's Brian Donlevy (Apparently that was a very wrong portrayal, rendering Quatermass an egomaniac, but I actually liked it a good deal and thought it added a certain bite to the character), but not afraid to talk tough when the situation calls. The supporting characters are all strongly etched in this film, although Col. Breen suffers from a lack of depth.

While the bombastic trick solution climax (all these alien invasion films have to have them, don't they?) is not particularly satisfying, the film on the whole is a good one, traveling a long way on interesting concepts delivered with respect and intelligence. Consider that a strong recommendation.

Endhiran aka Robot [S. Shankar]

Rewind some 3 years back to Sivaji – The Boss, the first collaboration between mega-star Rajnikant and mega-director S. Shankar. Given the colossally exaggerated stylistic flourish of several of the films made by these two names in their individual capacities, one expected the end product to be the embodiment of chutzpah and ass-kickery in the realm of mainstream Dravidian cinema. Sadly, this was not to be. The rare bit aside, Sivaji proved to be despite its lavishness lackluster, and the combination of “Baas” Rajni and Shankar turned out a wasted opportunity. Flash to the present now, to another collaboration of these two phenomena in the form of Endhiran aka Robot. How does the die roll this time around? Short answer: THIS is what Sivaji should have been. THIS is, in capital letters, REDEMPTION.

The most important thing that anyone going to watch this film should keep in mind is that it is built around the legend of its leading man; putting it simply, the movie exists to show there's nothing Rajni Kan't. Yes, one of the lead characters is a scientist (Rajni) and the other is his humanoid robot (Rajni, again), and there are casually dropped remarks about cloning, fuel cells and electromagnetism. But you don't need to be even remotely geeky to see that the science is utter hokum. When you're the most expensive Indian film made (180 crore rupees or more, approximately US$40 million) in a nation where even basic literacy is at a premium, you can't conjure a techno-fantasy to appeal to the fetishes of high school nerds, and robo-Rajni's references to his “one terahertz processor, one zetabyte memory” are probably about as much technical jargon as the largest contingent of Rajni-fans will take before keeling over.

In the admittedly absurd narrative, scientist Rajni devotes all his attention to making an advanced robot soldier that he proposes to provide as an asset to the Indian armed forces. He goes rather far in said quest, bothering to give the robot artificial skin (even feeds the robot dancing modules, which could...umm, I don't know...help at those military balls). Scientist Rajni's work must really take its toll on his health because despite being depicted as an eligible bachelor with a medical student girlfriend, one could swear that at several moments he looks rather like grandpa in a bad wig. Harrumph, let's remind ourselves again that this is a Rajnikant film and push ahead. Robo-Rajni is proudly unveiled and takes his first steps into the living world, accompanied by a large number of simple-minded jokes about his bumbles with understanding humans, some of which, like his run-in with a corrupt traffic cop, are actually funny. Scientist Rajni then uses this evolved robot as a super-expensive valet (although given auto-rickshaw rates and attitude of drivers in Chennai, perhaps even actual servants cost a bomb and behave thuggishly). He also blithely loans him to the girlfriend (Aishwarya Rai, aged and dumb-mannered enough to support the character of a repeat failure medico). This affords the opportunity for Shankar to rub spit between the palms and break out some of his trademark visual chutzpah. A brilliantly mounted sequence where robo-Rajni takes on a small battalion of ruffians on and off a local train comes off as one of the best action sequences one has ever seen up till then.

In the meanwhile, scientist Rajni's erstwhile mentor, played by classy Bollywood baddie Danny Denzongpa, grows jealous of his student's success and after failed attempts to copy the magic formula (robo-Rajni's “neural schema”) makes use of his position in the regulatory board (for robo-research? I couldn't get that clearly) to reject robo-Rajni's entry as a combat soldier on the basis that he lacks “feeling” and cannot distinguish friend and foe. With the help of more absurd techno-jargon, scientist Rajni apparently “injects” feelings into his creation. This brings up a whole slew of problems as robo-Rajni with his “humane” outlook falls for the scientist's girlfriend and asserts his right to “live and love”. Cue then to spiraling chaos as “now feeling” robo-Rajni is turned to evil to achieve his end, even making a clone army in the process. What happens then and how his mega-menace is finally vanquished forms the remainder of the proceedings.

Having Rajnikant play the lead in a film is a double-edged sword. On the one financial success is almost a given; his fans care nothing that their superstar is in real life a bald, paunchy 60-year old with total disregard to sartorial trends. But it also severely limits his onscreen character. Presenting him as anything other than the super-heroic “protector of the poor” and “son of a thousand mothers” or daring to show him getting even slightly roughed up by a baddie has proved to be often dangerous to the makers and exhibitors of films in that part of the country. Shankar has circumvented this major limitation with his double-role gambit. Who better to provide a serious challenge to the heroic Rajni than a villainous Rajni? The superstar, who in the early days of his acting career played several roles with negative shades, grabs with palpable relish the long-lost chance of portraying a baddie again, and with his characteristic aplomb, significantly effaces reservations of him being the right actor for the role. In short Evil Rajni rocks!!!

But the foremost reason for seeing this film is its sequences of large scale daredevilry and visual effects audacity. My biggest fear after the aforementioned train battle was whether the rest of the film would have stuff to match it. As it turned out, that scene was not only matched but pounded to the ground by the sheer awesomeness of the action that followed. The CGI may not have the polish and integration that the typical Hollywood summer blockbuster has, but in my view Shankar's conception and choreography of the action rivals and even surpasses the work of the Wachowskis and Michael Bay. The climax with the shenanigans of the clone army of robo-Rajnis is the apogee of the imagination and painstaking effort taken to make the film. Also, thanks to the very malleable standards of the Indian censor board, this “U” certificate film happily shows us such sights as the large scale massacre of policemen, which even the Terminator franchise had to nerf in its sequels.

There are caveats, yes. The filler in between the action can be tedious, though I'd assert no more so than any other stereotype Rajni film; most scenes featuring Aishwarya Rai fall in this category. You'd think at least a film of this scale and intent would stoke him, but AR Rahman continues his trend of “Money for Nothing” scores, and only the song sequences shot in Machu Pichu and in the WTF futuristic lair of evil Rajni match up to the hallucinatory goodness of Shankar's erstwhile song picturizations. But to my mind the good parts of this film by their sheer impact far eclipse its weaknesses and I can confidently regard Endhiran/Robot as one of the most entertaining films in the repertoires of both Rajnikant and Shankar. Viva la combinación!

Man Who Fell To Earth [Nicholas Roeg]

The Man Who Fell to Earth or TMWFTE (1976) can probably be best described as a psychedelic experiment in the same spirit that led to the progressive rock music movement of that decade. There's a boat-load of ideas - thematic and visual - that are flung right at you, and an audacious degree of artistic ambition...but also a pretentious indulgence that makes for a sometimes trying experience.

In probably the canniest decision ever, perennial cutting-edge rock star David Bowie is cast as an alien (there are those who would consider this a spoiler, but if you haven't figured it out from the opening scene and the title of the film, I could suggest some special school for you) who comes to earth with an agenda. Bowie, who was then in his Thin White Duke phase, brings a fragile otherworldly beauty to the part and is indistinguishable from his character. The outsider, calling himself Thomas Newton, makes his way to a patent lawyer with a bunch of inventions that will make him one of the richest entrepreneurs in the world. Once a mind-bogglingly successful reclusive billionaire ala Howard Hughes, he turns his resources to a gargantuan space transport scheme.

That's the bare outline, but TMWFTE is far from routine SF. Nicholas Roeg takes the theme and runs it through his style, giving the story a fragmented and often languorous dream-like feel. A single conversation may be carried out over a succession of scenes with different actors. Dialog serves more as a window into the emotional workings of the characters than as plot device. The depictions of Newton's austere home world, an Arrakis-like planet bereft of water (his mission being to carry water from earth, or something in that vein), are more symbolic than credible. Newton wants to save his family and world but, unlike the protagonists of a Jerry Bruckheimer film, is in no screaming hurry. When his space mission attempt is aborted by paranoid government intervention he gives himself up without protest to solitary confinement and the pleasures of dry gin. The allegory to a fallen angel is plain without being obnoxious. When it works, the film has a visual and narrative aesthetic that is stunning.

The film also builds its emotional moments from the interactions that Newton has with people, especially Mary-Lou (Candy Clark, bravely played), the earthy simple-minded woman he develops an intimate relationship with. We see these relationships growing and changing with time (the humans age while Newton doesn't) and circumstance. Roeg brilliantly uses sex as a means of conveying the tone of emotional make-up of characters and the relationships between them – the scene where Newton and a drained Mary-Lou make out, constantly shooting each other with blanks from a gun, is a more potent depiction of their falling out of love than any amount of exposition.

With all this goodness, the film also has its flaws. The leisurely pace beyond a point becomes wearisome. Even accepting that plot is not the be-all for the film, its flimsiness cannot be entirely ignored. But all things considered, this is still a solid example of the time when at least some directors got the opportunity to express their esoteric vision and films could take genuinely experimental “What if...” approaches.