Citadel, Review: When James meets, Jane it’s a Bond Two franchises have set the benchmark as far as spy thrillers go. No marks for guessing that these are James Bond and Mission Impossible. It’s been a mind-boggling 61 years since the first James Bond film was released. Ethan Hunt, of Mission Impossible, first appeared on screen in 1996, 27 years ago. And neither seems to have called it a day. Both have a male protagonist, who performs mind-boggling stunts and survives against al...

Spies in Disguise, Review: Walter, Pigeon and These Guys You might say that being in disguise is an essential qualification of being spies, so why give your film an obvious title? There is a rhyme and reason. The spy in this film turns into a pigeon, no less, upon drinking a serum, invented by a teenager called Walter Beckett, and that is one hell of a disguise! Use of the plural is questionable, though, since there is only one spy in the picture, while the other guy in ‘disguise’...

Gemini Man, Review: Clone arranger Ang Lee directed this poor man’s James Bondage? The man who made Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger--Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi? No, this is the Ang Lee who made Hulk, which earned twice its cost. A VFX delight, Gemini Man is about a clone on a mission to kill a man who is a professional killer, and is also the man he was cloned from. The movie disappoints, with a below par screenplay, and few impressive d...

Movie memories, by Siraj Syed--The Bourne Supremacy (2004): Supreme racy As I write this flashback review, five Jason Bourne films have been released, of which The Bourne Supremacy was the second. The lead character and plot premises are all based on the milieu created by Robert Ludlum’s action-thriller novels about CIA agent Jason Bourne and the Agency’s use of his skills in executing murderous missions, after subjecting him to drug-induced psychogenic amnesia. This one begins t...