Black

I wasn't going to watch Black but the plot of Coherence had me eager to see how this had been adopted for the Tamil audience. I'd heard GOOD reviews, but I was fairly certain they'd take at least 20 mins to get the plot started but.....this, while a bold attempt at sci-fi in Kollywood, is a far cry from the original. You may find it worth your time if you have not watched Coherence, but boy was this a mess in comparison. The plot takes about 40 mins to get started, there are elements in the film that feel unnecessary, not sure about the creative decisions but the writer might have had reasons.

From a plot standpoint, this film throws very many scientific terms in the climax and hopes we're like "Oh, i see what happened" and I don't know if that was....convincing.

The original has 8 people central to the plot and you'd think this adds to the complexity but they surprisingly did a good job. In Black, the plot revolves around just the two leads and even that is needlessly convoluted.

Just by itself, it was..an OK movie at best. Keta "Hollywood la yedutha OK nu sollunvinga" nu dialogue viduvanungo. When you take into account that it was an official remake, this was an opportunity wasted.

Watch Coherence regardless, you can then watch Black or skip it.

Movie started off with a great start but ended up not hitting the mark with unnecessary sub plots that failed to align with the main plot.

Whatever that was missed in the plot was made up with the acting of both actors, Jeeva and Priya. Both played their roles well especially the character of Jeeva as he struggles to understand the confusion and mystery of his surroundings.

That being said, credit has to be given to production team that filled the set with the theme of mystery in the crucial parts. This gave the opportunity for editing to turn put better and honestly, even though the movie could have been better, it is still worth a watch if you are into mystery movies.

It's 1964, Manohar is helping his friends elope and marry despite being in love with the girl. He takes them to his holiday home and soon, finds them both dead, shocking the bejesus out of him. Years later, Vasanth and Aranya are a couple who are happily married but small strain is showing in their relationship. To make up for it, they plan a vacation and land up in the holiday home. It's the night of red moon and both start feeling strong deja vu. They are further shocked to see similar houses which are occupied despite being not sold. What do they uncover on that night while being stuck in a loop? How does Aranya go missing, turning Vasanth into a suspect? Will Vasanth be able to prove his innocence and find his wife? The film tries to answer them all.

I have not seen the film that acts as inspiration to this one. It is commendable to see a film outside the usual Tamil cinema and 2024 has been the year where this has been tried a few times especially in Kannada films. The story deals with parallel universes theory and the director takes his sweet time to get to the point i.e. Good 40 odd minutes which would be my major complaint. Once the couple settle in the house, it gets interesting and the director is able to keep the mystery alive for the next one hour. The explanation does get oversimplified in the third act and I wish the director had explored the 1964 plot a bit more. The final twist is decent and again, it could have been executed a lot better if the climax had maintained the tense moment. I would still recommend Black to all, just for the attempt.

Good execution. Last 50 mins is the strongest segment of the movie.

Too many sequences spent to establish the theory behind the strange events, also in its completion by reverse tracking.

A Clean screenwriting just serves for a foolproof establishment and development of events, no serious effort is actually needed to know what's happening.

The setting of the story is very realistic and true to certain basic factors like the actual time period and follow up of events within.

This is a completely script driven movie and is fully engrossed into it's world, and does not depend on any additional effort by its actors and only demands a lot from the technicians, especially the editor of the movie.

In Overall, this movie is for a casual outing in theaters or ott.

The core concept of Coherence with unnecessary songs and too much spoonfeeding after intentionally messing up the narrative because the makers aren't smart enough to actually make it as tight as Coherence. But the middle portion of the movie did feel compelling and keeping it more of a time loop would have worked better with respect to that portion because it clearly also got some inspiration from Timecrimes. It made the atmosphere of a proper horror movie in those portions. However, the unnecessary first act and the confused third act drag the movie down. The very end would've worked more if they had taken a different route in the middle. Nonetheless, it is a nice attempt at making a mind-bending movie within the realm of commercial Tamil films and the compelling middle portion of the movie makes it a worthwhile big screen watch.