RIFLE RANGE BOY

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) Directed by Taika Waititi Soon after the March 8, 2014, disappearance of MH370, the world went into a prayer frenzy. People from various denominations were in unison in wanting to invoke their respective Gods to give a favourable outcome to the fracas. Despite all the fear of possible eternal surveillance by the powers that be, people soon realised that they could let a magnanimous Boeing plane go missing right under their noses with no recourse to recover it.   All the penance and the prayers proved futile as we have been made to believe that the vessel just disappeared into thin air. What is the response of the believers? Are you going to move on in life believing that the Divine Forces, in all their wisdom, work in mysterious ways and do what is best for mankind? Are they going to think that they had not prayed hard enough, or would they turn livid, believing that the Gods had let them down? These thoughts went through my mind as I viewed MCU's...

Doctor Strange (2022) Director: Sam Raimi The people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe must be thinking that their diehard fans must be nuts. Still riding on the idea of the existence of multiple universes, MCU came out with their 28th instalment through this film. It is a simple story of a woman scorned by losing two young sons. As we saw in Wandavision in a make-believe happy family, Scarlet Witch is livid as she tries desperately to get back to her Universe. For that, she needs power, and she tries to sap the energy of a newbie superhero (who does not even recognise her superpower), American Chavez. The need for inclusivity brought in a Latina-flavoured character. American Chavez and Wong, on their run, between Universes, land in Doctor Strange's Universe and the good doctor is sucked is in into the duel. After witnessing multiple eye-popping displays of CGI and destruction, we are told that there is another evil Dr Strange with a 'third eye' later seen in the post-credit...

Black Widow (2021) Everybody talks about wanting to be free, free from any encumbrances, free to say and do as he pleases, free as a bird to move around. The caged dog looks at his stray counterpart on the other side of the fence with contempt for the freedom that he enjoys. On the other hand, the stray longs for the time when he does not have to scratch his head looking for his next meal. We think we are free by living with our loved ones or within communities that we find commonalities. Sad to say that even within societies, certain norms and mores exist that one is excepted to conform to. Challenges are bound to happen with the members in the spring of their youth; the young feel restricted with educational exposure. They want to be free of any restrictive chains that bog them down. Like it or not, it is not easy. Wilfully or not, we are tied down. A society is paved towards a particular direction by the instructions laid down by the majority. To reach greater heights, these laid la...

  Loki (Season1, E1-E6; 2021) Marvel Cinematic Universe When Loki was apprehended and transported after Avengers: Endgame, in the confusion of Hulk creating a tantrum for needing to use the stairs and Iron Man faking a heart attack, Loki escapes captivity through a Tesseract and enter a different realm. He lands in the headquarters of Time Variance Authority (TVA).  Here, the narcissistic Norse God of Mischief Loki learns of variants of himself floating in the multiple timelines creating havoc. The Time-Keepers had set a Scared Timeline for events to happen, but somehow variants have made branches from the main timeline. The TVA's job is to ensure that the correct path of the Sacred Timeline is followed. Some of the variants are evil alter-egos and are hellbent on creating chaos. As he is charged against the 'Sacred Timeline', Loki's plea bargain is to hunt down another Loki variant who had killed TVA officers and stolen the time resetting devices. Time, as we perceive,...

The Falcon and Winter Soldier (Miniseries, E1-6; 2021) Marvel Cinematic Universe Just how long did it take for a person to stay in a country for him to be accepted by his fellow countrymen to be one of them? Human beings are innately racists. For a long time, they have generally felt safe being amongst their own kind who share the same sentiments and values. Perhaps it is something that they have not been able to shed off from their tenure as dwellers of the caves. In those days (even now, of course), Nature has been quite harsh for things to be left for granted. The vulnerability of exposure to the elements of Earth made us suspicious of everything. The last thing they want to be is to end up as a meal for others. So, it is human nature to look upon the other who looks different from them and be wary of their intention. But we also have developed a sense of awareness that teaches good values and conducts. Are these mere decorative motifs to fill books and scriptures? 'The Falcon a...

Irishman (2019) Director: Martin Scorsese This movie received brickbats even before it came to the screens (or rather Netflix). Scorsese, maybe on purpose, stirred the hornet's nest by making a statement about the genre that seems to captivate the imaginations of the Millenials - the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). He asserted that the MCU world is not cinema but mere theme parks. To quote Scorsese, " cinema is about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It is about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves. Marvel movies don't encapsulate those criteria." To be fair, even Alfred Hitchcock's and P Ramlee's movies were criticised in their days. There were said to be gruesome or too violent (Psycho) or crossing the social norms (Ramlee's Gelora). Even though the new franchises...

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) It may be a thrilling experience for a diehard MCU fan. For an average viewer, however, it may just be another a superhero movie of a young boy with too much raw power in his hands. How many times have we been confronted with a superhero with the dilemma of doing the correct thing with the unique ability that he had been conferred? And in how many outings have we seen Spidey's wooing of his beau, Mary Jane? This time around, the story writers had taken us to a time when Peter Parker was still in school before his stint as a part-time journalist with the Daily Bugle and his daily tiff with his editor J. Jonah Jameson.  In keeping with the sensitivities of the times, MJ is no more the blue-eyed, high cheek-boned orthodontist-treated wannabe blonde actress  but a fellow classmate of the member of the minority group. For good measure, the producers had resorted to race-swapping to pacify all quarter. A hijab-clad fellow student and an Oriental...

Avengers: Endgame (2019) We always associate destruction with negativity. Erection and construction, on the other hand, is hailed as the epitome of prosperity. Hence, annihilation, collision and termination are scorned upon. Unfortunately, life is not so simple.  There can never be peace without prior anarchy; no construction without demolition and no shanthi without ashanti. Life, with its ups and down, are aplenty with cyclical loss and gains. That was the same dilemma when I came to discover about Lord Shiva, one of the main component of the Trinity in the post-Vedic Hinduism. The trident-bearing Lord is revered for his greatness and ferocious power to destroy and is invoked for peace on Earth. It baffled me how damage can lead to prosperity. Herein lies the profound philosophy of life. Someone or something who jolts the equilibrium, the status quo, has to or to be destroyed before life can proceed in a just manner. The evils do not necessarily come from without to spew ...