Jithindurden

It's curious that this film doesn't really mention much of Christmas and there are a lot of poojas shown throughout the movie and yet this is the perfect Christmas movie released this Christmas. Nivin is in his safe zone in this playful feel good movie with a bit of fantasy. Riya Shibu was such a perfect fit for the role and easily managed to impress the audience. Akhil Sathyan has improved from his previous film and looks like he's here to stay by giving us such heartwarming tales.

Fit for a proper Christmas movie, the plot is simple, trope filled but heartwarming. And I guess this is what people have been wanting to see Nivin in for so long that this is gonna work great in theaters.

Avatar movies have been primarily about two things: the innovative visual extravaganza, and its staunch anti-imperialistic stance on the US and in those fronts, Fire and Ash delivers. The visuals are still great, the franchise is continuing with its best use of 3D as well as the higher frame rates, but this time, some of it felt a little bit closer to video games.

The politics follows its proper chronology; the first one was about the Vietnam/Iraq situations, the second one was about CIA operations that run for revenge and profit, and this is the continuation of that, where they supply arms to groups that, as per the chronology, should become a threat to everyone, including them in the future.

But the first two films were able to create curiosity and wonder in a way that the audiovisual treatment would elevate it so that the cinematic experience was also able to enhance the message they were carrying. Here, it is a direct continuation of Way of Water, which makes a lot of it very limited. The writing chose to be very convenient in a lot of stuff, where full ambiguity would've been better than giving so much time to explain stuff, while still being partially ambiguous. It didn't get to the highs the first two films did, but it is still a very satisfying theatre experience that's rare to get.

Such a bland, straightforward crime thriller that is filled with plotholes. The fact that Mammootty suggested Vinayakan for a role that was originally planned for Prithviraj makes the miscasting even more glaring. If they had put some effort into making it anything more than the superficial stuff, this could've been way better. I mean, they included so many dialogues for Vinayakan's character, most of which sounded stupid, to make sense for the way the movie ends, but besides those almost expository dialogues, it doesn't explore anything thematically when it could've been a brilliant mirror to the main crime that is being investigated. The more I think about this movie, the more disappointing it becomes.