Rahul Desai

I have my reservations about live-action hybrid remakes of animated Disney classics. I just don’t see the point. The original invariably does a better job of charming newer generations of kids and adults (on smaller screens). The odd tech and VFX updates aside, there’s no real add-on; it’s like watching the capitalisation and credit of cultural interest into a bank account that refuses to invest in the current market. Remaking beats a re-release, sure, but it’s a mighty expensive way of telling the same story twice. The commercialism is grating, especially when the film in question is a cutesy childhood fable about the wonders of being young. But the most pressing question surrounding this remake/adaptation cycle is: Have we run out of imagination? Is there no will to create something new?

It’s never a good sign when you watch a remake and immediately have to look up the story of the original to understand exactly what you watched. Being in the dark for 142 minutes can go two ways: either it happened or you slept early and had a fever dream. Kapkapiii is somehow a bit of both; the viewer is never sure where their own reality ends and fiction begins. It is disorienting, patched-up, sporadic and incomplete, and not in a good-psychedelic way. Based on the Malayalam horror-comedy Romancham (2023), it tells (but also untells) the tale of six male flatmates sharing a decrepit apartment in which strange things happen after they mess around with a makeshift Ouija board. There are also two young women who live above, a swaggy Muslim don, Kya-Kool-Hai-Hum-meets-Delhi-Belly innuendos that don’t land, a graveyard for rats (!), a weird houseguest, and jumpscares that exist for the heck of it. To be fair, they’re all as confused as we are.

I suspect this is going to be a short review. Not just because Kesari Veer is unwatchable in so many different ways that one is spoiled for choice. But also because I’m tired of writing the same thing about multiple Hindi period dramas — if one can call them that — over the last few years. As a critic, I’ve gotten to a point where I robotically tick off a mental checklist. Provocative? Of course. Islamophobic? Certainly. Hate-mongering? Obviously. Misinformation parading as creative license? Sure. Kesari Veer is a 162-minute inspired-by-true-events slog about a Rajput warrior who tries to defend the Somnath temple against the Tughlaq Empire in the 14th century, but it’s also another 21st-century excuse to demonise Muslims in a communally sensitive country through the elastic medium of history. In another era, it would’ve been banned. All of this goes without saying. It’s the starting point. Tell me something new.

Imagine an enticing cricket match. The players have serious skills. The spectators are having a blast. The momentum swings back and forth. Until suddenly, out of nowhere, a batsman does something controversial: he gets out on purpose. He ‘sacrifices’ his own innings so that his teammate, the more deserving candidate, can smash the winning runs. The commentators then play down the incident and reveal that this whole match was planned down to the T — it was all a ruse to prove that cricket is a selfless sport. Nothing was real. In fact, a multibillion-dollar corporation donated a small fortune to NGOs for every wicket and boundary. It’s not enough that cricket entertains; it must make the world a better place. Fans must be taught the value of humanity, even if it’s at the cost of the game. Some might call this charity. I call it ethical match-fixing.

Unlike most action-adventure franchises, Mission: Impossible has often thrived on expressing how hard it works. It’s the opposite of effortless. Nothing looks easy; nobody is smooth and sophisticated; not a frame seems bereft of blood, sweat, madness and tears. A large part of its allure is rooted in this utter lack of vanity, this desire to be open about its working-class spectacle. Tom Cruise, arguably the most majestic of modern superstars, hasn’t been afraid to channel this ugliness as Ethan Hunt. His stunts over the years — including a (literally) breath-taking underwater quest and an acrobatic mid-air brawl in the latest instalment — feature all sorts of cosmetic imperfections: the rippling of skin folds, awkward facial contortions, wide-eyed terror, garbled gasps, desperate lunges. The miracle was always how real and impossibly human he looked.

It’s a strange week to be a Hollywood nerd. I binge-watched all the seven Mission: Impossible movies in anticipation of The Final Reckoning. Psychologically, this made me feel invincible — I almost found myself walking into oncoming traffic on a Mumbai highway (the potholes slowed down the cars, but never mind), convinced that I’d Ethan-Hunt my way out of danger. Nothing could kill me; I felt braver every time I risked my life to reach a place. Then I speed-watched the five Final Destination movies in anticipation of the sixth, Final Destination Bloodlines, which is more of a reboot but never mind. Just to get into the spirit of things. Psychologically, this made me feel extremely killable. On one hand, the M:I movies injected blind courage into me, but on the other, my mind was suddenly wired to obsess about a million gruesome ways I could perish the moment I walked out my front door. Was I fearless or scared sh*tless? I don’t know anymore. Maybe it’s the same thing.

Kull: The Legacy of the Raisingghs opens with a bloody corpse floating in a palatial pool. The senile King of Bikaner, Chandra Pratap Raisinggh (Rahul Vohra), has been murdered. The butler did not do it. As is the template, we learn of the days and circumstances leading up to the tragedy. The next three episodes revolve around a birthday celebration gone wrong, lots of wheeling and dealing, and of course, a dysfunctional and greedy family. Everyone needs money, nobody is happy, and almost nobody is sad that the old man popped it. There’s the oldest, Indrani (Nimrat Kaur), in a lavender marriage with the Chief Minister’s gay son, Vikram (Suhaas Ahuja). There’s Kavya (Ridhi Dogra), the pensive one handling the property; she’s having an affair with the videographer (Arslan Goni) who’s filming this royal family for a streaming platform. There’s Abhimanyu (Amol Parashar), the coke-addicted and bratty prince who addresses an indulgent Indrani as “maa” (mother). And there’s Brij (Gaurav Arora), the king’s illegitimate son and the only loyal royal around. A cocky CBI officer named Bhagwan (what else?) arrives, sorts through the fresh characters and the raw footage, and the killer is revealed as early as the fourth episode.

Thunderbolts* has a soul beneath layers of superhero set pieces and tropes — it mixes a bit of Inception (shame rooms full of old memories) with some Inside Out and Hancock. It’s not subtle with its gimmicks and visual symbolisms, of course, but it suggests that all the superhero fans who flock to theatres in search of escapism and thrills are inherently wired to avoid the imperfections of being human. It forces most MCU enthusiasts to confront the very life that the comic-book multiverse protects them from.