Avengers, Endgame: Thanostradamus As star casts go, Avengers: Endgame runs up a mind-boggling score. Like in theatrical performances, where all characters come on to the stage after the performance to take a bow, Endgame brings them all on screen, even resurrecting the dead, in a show of ultimate strength, before their nemesis is vanquished. Just as it takes two lives to conquer the dark force, the dark force itself needs to be conquered not once but twice. It is ingenious writing, to lay out...

Avengers-Infinity War, Review: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust #Book of Common Burial Prayer, 1662: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life. #‘Ashes to ashes, funk to funky’ Artiste: David Bowie, Album: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), 1980. From all appearances, a large number of Marvel’s Avengers and their partners in common cause have become ashes by the time the film ends. Whether any of them will be Re...

Captain America-Civil War, Review: Danger...Us? Emerging from the 2006 Marvel Comic storyline, Civil War, this is a top heavy assembly, where the heroes get divided into two camps and battle it out, before realising that unity in diversity must come first, and egos should take second billing. It is about two superstars taking opposing, dictatorial stances, but with so many characters doing their bit for the fans, the film is a democratic treatise. Villains, by comparison, are poorly delineate...

Triple 9, Review: 9 pins If bodies count in a crime drama, the body count in Triple 9 is very high. In fact, hardly anybody is left alive in the end. So that makes it morbid. Decapitation and gore galore make it really blood-curdling. Cops and criminals mixing and mingling, while betraying and killing each other, make it confusing. High-profile robberies, blackmail, drug dealers, buddy-buddy cops, uncle-nephew, brother-brother, alcoholic cop, titillation (if the censors have let it pass), bet...

Ant-Man, Review: Up the ANTe When a comic-book super-hero film engages you on two fronts, exhilarating effects and hearty humour, the audience is in for a good time. It is debatable whether going the whole hog on either front, at the cost of the other, would have served the plot better, but Ant-Man has turned out to be refreshing and innovative viewing. In 1989, scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D., after discovering that the organisation tried to send him off to Ru...