Shazam Review

DCEU has been releasing at least one solo superhero movie each year. While their eforts at creating a successful Justice League has not yet worked their solo superhero movies have worked quite well with the audiences. First it was Wonder Woman, then Aquaman and now it's Shazam.

Shazam is one of the DC superheroes who is not very popular unlike their Justice League counterparts. However the story has been written in such a way as to appeal to the audiences even if they have never heard about Shazam. In doing that they have been able to create a franchise which feels fresh. The movie is unlike most superhero movies where the main character is not trying to save the world or the universe, but trying to save his family. As the character discovers his various abilities one by one while facing his arch nemesis, the audience does so too with him. This makes the audiences more engaged with the movie. The movie has a humour which is missing in most DC movies and this works in its favour. While the movie is slow at places, the humour element keeps the audience glued to the screen. In short this is a coming of age movie for the superhero Shazam and lays down the path for the sequel. The visual effects are good but could have certainly been better.

Zachary Levi is good in his humorous superhero role.  Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Shazam's alter ego is also good. But Jack Dylan Grazer as Billy's best friend is the best. Overall nothing to go gaga about acting skills on shiw in the movie, but at least they are convincing.

David F. Sandberg is a horror film maker and snippets of that can be seen in some of the sequences of the movie. Knowing that he is a horror movie director, I can say that he has done a good job at making this light hearted superhero movie.

Overall this is a movie for all the superhero fans who want to watch a good DCEU movie. So go ahead and watch this movie.

Rating - 3 / 5

Kesari Review

Kesari is the first of a line up of Akshay Kumar starrer releases this year. As with momo of his releases it is neither a superb movie, nor a bad one, but somewhere in between.

The movie is about how 21 sikh soldiers stood and battled against an army of 10000 afghan soldiers. The movie has a good script which helps the movie. Unlike most other movies it gets straight to the point instead of beating around the bush and creating too many lengthy backstories for the characters. The script helps in creating character arcs mostly with the help of dialogues and thus does not need flashbacks. Thus within a short span of time you are able to empathise with most of the characters. Thus during the battle sequences you end up rooting for these characters, which is a positive for this movie. The movie's ongoings happen at a fast pace and thus kudos to the editors who have done well in making the movie fast paced and crisp. The action is well choreographed at most places, however the last action scene where Akshay Kumar is single handedly killing multiple afghan soldiers does not look authentic. The movie has been shot in really beautiful locations which have been captured very well on camera.

Akshay Kumar is ok in a role of a sikh soldier during British rule while Parineeti Chopra has too small a role to leave any impact. Acting wise the movie is ok with no spectacular performances.

Anurag Singh's good direction can be seen in both the emotional and action scenes and he seems to be able to handle them both equally well. However this is his first Hindi movie and I can't compare the movie with his other Punjabi works as I haven't seen them. Would be waiting for his next movie to get an idea of the kind of director he is.

Overall the movie is good for a one time watch. So anyone who wants to watch an emotional action movie can go watch this movie.

Rating - 3 / 5