Jaden's Movie Reviews

THE FOUR HORSEMEN ARE BACK BABY!! I was fortunate enough to catch the lastest entry in the NYSM franchise: Now You See Me Now You Don't, early at the Motiongate X Roxy Cinemas UAE premiere, thanks to Roxy Cinemas and Italia Film ME. I was a huge fan of the previous 2 films, the first one being the highlight of the series for me, and boy did I enjoy this one! First off, this movie is a ton of fun. Packed with stylistic magic sequences, exotic locations (even a portion in Abu Dhabi 😉) and a fresh pack of characters, Now You See Me: Now You Don't kept me on the edge of my seat, anticipating the next crazy magic trick they would do to get out of whatever risky situation they're in. The plot is fairly simple: the 4 Horsemen team up with a bunch of new "illusionists" to steal the world's largest diamond; however, the execution surpassed the simplicity of the plot. The highlight of the film for me was the scene where they each tried to one-up the other using magic,...

Kaantha is the latest period drama from renowned actor Dulquer Salman, pairing up with a not-so-famous director: Selvamani Selvaraj. Going into this film, I kept my expectations quite high after seeing the mysterious and intriguing trailer. Safe to say, I was not disappointed at all. I expected this script to be extremely rigid and cliché: ego clashes, relationship dynamics and an egoistic actor. However, this is one of those silent movies that slowly sneaks up on you and shocks you when you're at your weakest. At its core, Kaantha is a character-driven piece. The film introduces us to TK Mahadevan and Ayya, whose internal lives are rich, tense and full of drama. Their conversations, silences, and even small gestures are rich in subtext. The director does a wonderful job of letting character development take centre stage, gently peeling back layers through both dialogue and visual storytelling. This is DQ's strongest performance yet, blending moments of quiet confrontatio...