Saturday, November 25, 2006

Dhoom 2 - the review

Whenever I see movies like Dil ka Rishta, Sillunu Oru Kadhal etc. I feel an inexplicable urge to write "reviews". I guess it's my subconscious mind telling me that such masterpieces should not go unnoticed. Or more truthfully, I wish to spread the pain ('A burden shared is a burden reduced' goes the old jungle saying). And thus, I present to you: Dhoom-2.

I have not seen Dhoom-1 and the friends who invited me to watch Dhoom-2 assured me that Dhoom-1 had been total timepass and had had good entertainment value. Hence, they reasoned, the sequel couldn't be too bad. The first warning sign should have been the good review from Rediff, yeah, the very same website which gave a oh-so-good review for the oh-so-terrible Jaan-e-mann. However I ignored the warning sign.

Dhoom 2 should have been more appropriately titled as "A Series of Unrelated and Unbelievable Stunt Sequences". The movie kicks off with a train in the Namibian desert. A queen (who suspiciously looks like what Hrithik Roshan(HR) would look if he is made up as a grandma) is travelling on the train with a precious crown. Our man of the moment, HR, is an internationally wanted thief who steals precious things from various parts of the world but manages to never get caught.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, HR lands on the train with a parachute. Then he gets into the train, disguises himself as the queen (easy, since the queen looks like HR as I said earlier) and steals the crown. Then jumps back onto the roof. At this point, the bumbling (but of course) security guards accost him. HR easily dodges the bullets with a foldable snowboard (I kid you not) and evades them . Anyways, then he mysteriously disappears with the crown.

Tada - the beginning credits began to roll to the background of HR dancing to the remixed "dhoom machale" song. My jaw which had hit the ground and rested there for the entire beginning sequence began to get back to my face. The train sequence had been one of the most logicless, brainless and unbelievable heist sequences I have seen in a long time. But as I watched HR gracefully doing his dance moves (boy, he CAN dance) I thought maybe the movie would get back to planet earth after that "spectacular" opening sequence. Hahaha, nice hopes!

Abhishek Bachchan (AB) and Uday Chopra (UC) as the cops get introduced into the scene next. Rimi Sen (RS) plays AB's pregnant wife. She has exactly 2 minutes in the entire movie - all of which are spent sitting on a rocking chair and shrieking. Bipasha Basu (BB) gets introduced as the hot cop who is on HR's case. Aishwarya Rai (AR) is an erstwhile thief who is assigned to befriend HR to help nab him - her freedom in case of HR's successful capture being the carrot. I guess that covers the main cast of characters - phew!

Anyways, the whole story is about how AB/UC/AR try to capture HR. BB gets a double role - she plays her own twin when the scene shifts to Brazil. Since both roles just require her to show off her well toned arms and body, I could not spot the difference.

There, I am not going to tell you the story scene by scene as I usually do in my "reviews". Actually, that is because there is no story to tell. This movie relies very heavily on star power and this shows in every scene where the actors are more intent on striking a pose which is most flattering to them in the frame instead of emoting. Of the guys, HR and AB look good (what about UC you ask? Hahahahaha - you got to be kidding me). Both BB and AR seem to have worked out a lot for this movie and show off their "hard work" with the aid of skimpy costumes (really, instead of being called actors, they can be called Fashion TV mannequins).

We all actually thought AR looked nice - until she opened her mouth. Even normally, AR has got an extremely annoying voice. In this movie, as if adding the cherry to the cake, she speaks in a weird way which involves using the word "like" in every other sentence and referring to herself in third person. Her character, named Sunehri, says things like "Sunehri is very good. Sunehri like trusts you." etc. A couple of scenes of AR and her whiny voice is enough to drive anyone up the wall - I was surprised when HR did not murder her due to extreme aggravation!

Anyways, the movie jumps from one unbelievable stunt sequence to the next. My eyes, which had popped out sometime in the first 30 minutes remained hanging out till the movie ended. As the movie wound towards its end, I wouldn't have been surprised if a "stunt" sequence had involved HR sprouting wings and flying.

But then came the classic scene: AB is chasing HR and HR jumps into an abyss. I was like "there, HR is going to start flying now". But no, instead, a parachute balloons open over him - our man obviously carries parachutes, ropes, snowboards and the like with him when on the run for exactly such emergencies. But what about AB? As the cop, would he also be running around with an in-case-of-emergency parachute? As we watched, AB too jumped right into the abyss - but no parachute ballooned open over him.

Ah - so maybe AB would sprout wings and start to fly I thought. But no - instead, AB expertly steers himself mid-air to where HR is falling and then catches hold of him. Then, in a spirit of neighborliness which was touching to watch, AB and HR share the same parachute and land safely on the ground and resume fighting. Wah, wah, wah!

I have just described two of the wonderful "stunt" scenes. The movie has many more such gems. But please don't take this as a recommendation to go watch the movie in the theatre. The only reason the seven of us who went to watch Dhoom-2 sat in the theatre for the whole movie was because each of us had paid $9.50 of our hard-earned money to suffer through it.

One thing I have to say for the movie - the cinematography is excellent. The places are shot beautifully. The stunt scenes look quite professional. Too bad that the director spent so much time on the movie's looks and the stars' looks that he did not find time to actually write a story. The supposed twists are ultra lame and can be guessed from light years away. Whole sets of characters disappear from the narration to never appear again. As I said before, logic is something which is totally left behind.

Leaving your brains at home or coming to the theatre with sackloads of credulity will help you sit through the movie. Unfortunately, we did neither - and we paid for it :-(!

17 comments:

Bina007 said...

Brilliant review. Terrible movie. I actually rather liked the first one. It was a harmless buddy cop movie like Lethal Weapon. This one was just too many stunts, too much slo-mo.....What a waste of time.

b a l a j i said...

same blood here :(

Anonymous said...

you never learn from your mistakes, do you? :-D

BZ said...

Ditto to Sparkie's comment. ;--))
Nice casts I suppose. Hindi movies have reduced to just fashion shows. :--)

Anonymous said...

Crap! Where is the spoiler warning. I now know the twist.

The Kid said...

I am terribly angry at you, Madamossaile.

I blame you singularly for writing an exellent review, not being honest about the movie itself. I agree panning a movie is usually funnier than praising, but this is not reason in itself to completely stamp out all goodness in a movie.

I watched Jaaneman and just because of your review I had been suggesting that it was a corny movie... but to my surprise Jaaneman was pretty good.

I do not like lovey-dovey movies or chik-flicks. But Jaaneman was new, the cinematography/camera was very original. The movie was really a dreamy musical / romantic comedy. In Jaaneman even Salmaan had acted well.

And madamossaile, dont try to hide behind "everybody's got opinion", logic. You had stereotyped Jaaneman.

Say it, Madamossaile, Say it. I want to here it here. :-)

btw, hindi maloom hai na?

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, I have a migraine after watching the movie. Words fail me. I think I did not enjoy even 2 seconds of the movie. 3 hours and a lack of ride back home made me sit through it. God, I promise, after Kabul Express, I will never ever watch another Yash Chopra movie in my life.

Anonymous said...

"AB expertly steers himself mid-air to where HR is falling"
Parchute stunt scene is ROTFL :))

cabtain padatha vida idhula comedy-a irukum pola irukke!!

I third Spark's comment - You never learn, do you? :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your "just in time" reviews ; they save me from a lot of pain :-).I feel like I owe you something :-). Inder had been talking of DHoom 2 coming up and I had been pushing it down based on intuitive thought. Now I know! :-)

Archana said...

Bina007 - thank you :-)! I shd probably get Dhoom-1 and watch it! Waste of time sums it up perfectly!

Balaji - you mean blood you shed watching it :-)?

Spark - Apparently, I don't *sigh*!

Saranya - Cha, rubbing it in vera! I know man - they think that looking good is equivalent to acting!!

Anon - Oi, what did you get to know about the twist from this review?

Pratap - looks like our taste in movies differ :-). Jaaneman was done differently, I agree, but the "different" part was so overdone that it lost all sense (at least to me). I didn't get it - how did I "stereotype" Jaaneman? I am not against chick flicks or musicals or romantic comedies - in fact I am kinda partial towards them. So, if at all I wanted to be biased, the movie review should have been positively biased but I couldn't do it :-)! Amaam, Hindi theriyamadhaan indha maadhiri super padam ellam theatre-la poi paakurein :-)!

Anon - unakku nalla venum :-P! Yeah this one was a colossal waste of time!!

Prabhu - :-D - seriously, I really thought Gabtun would be completely at home in this movie! Thanks pa, innum evalavu peyar vandhu idha solla poreenga :-(!

Archana - this time you really owe me something :-)! Really, this movie is so darn senseless, I think your IQ would dip by many points after watching it.

rads said...

hehe, as usual we love to trash our movies don't we? :-))

I am watching the movie for the 'bodies' - nothing else. :D

Anonymous said...

Archana,

I loved u r blog not this post but all the posts..U left AR telling Funny Guy... Excellent review and increase the frequency of u r posts...may be 3 to 4 a week..I know its hard to tell..but u write very well

K

Shilpa said...

LOL abt the parachute scene with AB and HR....!

Hmm....my friend wanted to watch it in the theatre....I guess I will just wait to rent it :-)

Oh BTW I rented JEM, havent watched it yet...:)

Archana said...

Rads - you have got to watch this movie and tell me whether I was being too harsh or not :-)!

Anon - thank you so much :-D! Oh yeah, funny guy - ugh - felt like throwing sth at the screen :-(!

Shilpa - amaam definet-aa DVD-la paru - with friends. It is so brainless, it will make for quite a lot of ROFL moments :-D!

Anonymous said...

I feel sorry that i didnt come across ur blog and this review before watching the movie. An afternoon to have been enjoyed after tiring exams was wasted sitting at the seat edge(not for the *thrilling* sequences, but hoping for the movie to end and to spring up and leave the theatre). Especially the scene where HR and AR sit and shoot each other alternately. Couldnt bear with the emotion that AR showed with the help of glycerine(one drop of tear came out. did u notice?). And much more horrible was the basket ball scene. Well, without these scenes, how will the director make up 3 hrs?

Archana said...

Rajagopal - Ugh! I wouldn't have minded an hour long movie without those horrible scenes!! Poor you - all my sympathies with you!

full movies said...

Thanks for a great review.