Jithindurden

Victoria is a movie that immediately shows that it's a low-budget film that wants to be artistically elevated while speaking about the effects of patriarchy on women; that is very clear from the way it is shot and the inclusion of a rooster at the very beginning. And that's the best and worst part of the movie. The movie shows the life of Victoria through the events of a single day, where everything tumultuous is basically in her mind, because the actual events have either already happened or are about to happen. But the day unravels through what happens in a beauty parlour through various women, conceived in a way that all the male characters only appear through the phone or from outside the doors, shows the larger picture of how patriarchy and other social evils affect women. Now, almost nothing in it is exactly new, but it gives off the feeling of honesty that is hard to put in a film. Even the way the movie decided to wrap up was in a way that I initially thought lacked the punch it should have. But I'm sure that was an informed decision because even though it was something that could've been presented as something revelatory in terms of empowerment, they chose to show it, the exact same thing, as something way more realistic, something that actually happens a lot. The performances were all solid, and Meenakshi Jayan was incredible in the title role. Overall, it is a very good movie that still has some issues. However, both its strengths and weaknesses are part of the design, although the length could've been longer, even the interval felt too early. I am really keen to see what Sivaranjini could come up with if she got a pretty good budget for her next movie.

Eko felt very fresh for a mystery thriller in the sense that, as an audience, the search for Kuriachan, which is what all the characters are interested in, is not exactly something we are interested in, and it still manages to be a damn good mystery thriller. The way it moves through all the characters and their motivations without ever really showing the full picture was done beautifully. But the answers that are needed are always present. The mystery was interesting also due to the way it is directed.

The atmosphere created using the cinematography and sound design was perfect. And the performances were incredible from everyone except one. The only problem with the movie is the one central casting where they chose to cast someone who is not a Malayali as a Malayali, and he just didn't feel right in the role. There are so many scenes in the movie that show a clear direction choice of using closeups as the intensity of the scene or the dialogue builds up, which is not the case for this one character because of the casting. But besides that, this movie worked really well.

The question of freedom and being a master as themes was conveyed very well. Even though I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters for most of the movie, the ending was really satisfactory. In a way, it might be sadistic, but I was literally grinning at the end like I watched some feel-good movie.

I probably enjoyed this movie than most people here, but I can still see that the problem with this is that there are too many voices behind the story. The way this story added intricate details to the origin of Spider-Man was consistent with the first part and felt like it cared about being a proper sci-fi. But then the whole character of Electro, which became the weakest part of the movie, is written so lazily in every way that you can clearly see the same person didn't come up with both of them. Despite all the issues this movie had, it also had Andrew and Emma under the direction of 500 Days of Summer, so the romantic portions were great. For most of the movie, it was at its best when it was focused on Peter rather than Spider-Man, and I loved it. As much as a lot of the movie didn't work, there was a lot of stuff that worked really, really well for me. And watching these old Spider-Man movies, all of them always had some scenes that were cool af in a way that the MCU never even tried, and I am glad I got to see it in the theatres. That last slow mo shot of them falling and that web shaping into a hand, how can I not like this!

Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield deserved better, and I am sad this was the end of this iteration. And yeah, Andrew is the best Spidey, no doubt about it.