My chest is still vibrating. Seriously.
Just got back from the cinema. It’s 1:44 AM. I was supposed to be asleep an hour ago, I have that stupid 8 AM class, but who cares. My ears are ringing, but not in a bad way. It’s the good kind of ringing. The kind you get after standing too close to an explosion. God, War 2. I don’t even know where to start.
First of all, the sound. In the PVR IMAX, it’s not just sound, it’s a physical assault. The bass doesn’t just hit your ears, it presses against your ribcage. When the first car blew up—like, five minutes in, they waste zero time—I felt my seat shake, my Coke tremble, and the guy next to me, a few kernels of his popcorn actually jumped out of the tub. I was leaning so far forward I almost fell out of my chair. Like I do on my couch at home, but this was a rock-hard cinema seat, so now my back hurts. Totally worth it.
And then there’s Hrithik. My god. How does that man even exist? He’s not acting, he’s just… being. There’s this one shot, this slow-mo shot, after he’s just gotten out of a fight, it’s pouring rain, and he’s covered in mud and water, and he stops in front of a puddle. He just looks at his own reflection. For a second. No dialogue. The music almost cuts out. All you can hear is the rain and his breathing. He’s looking at himself in the puddle, and his eyes aren’t heroic and determined, they’re just… tired? Questioning? I don’t know, but that shot is just burned into my brain. It was so quiet, so… human. In the middle of all that insane, impossible action, this one moment of pure vulnerability.
…that reminds me of when I was a kid, maybe 8 years old, and I was wearing my favorite white shirt for a party. My mom told me, “Ishaan, don’t you dare go near the mud puddles.” Of course, the first thing I did was run straight for the biggest one. I was covered. She was so mad. But the feeling of that mud… the freedom…
…wait, what does that even have to do with anything? Nothing. My brain is just soup right now.
Anyway, that reflection scene. It was cool, right? Or was it just… cliché? Every action movie has the hero looking at his reflection and questioning his life choices. Now that I’m typing it out, it sounds kind of dumb. Did I actually like it? I don’t know. In the theatre, with the epic score swelling behind it… it felt so right. So let’s just say I liked it. Don’t fight me on this.
The plot? Who cares about the plot. It’s about a chip, a list, a betrayal, a bigger conspiracy. You know the drill. But the execution… my god. That chase scene in Iceland? On the glaciers? I had a mouthful of popcorn and I almost choked because I forgot to breathe. And that fight on top of the Burj Khalifa… I’m a little afraid of heights, so my palms were sweating. I literally caught myself grabbing the armrests a few times, like that was going to help. So stupid.
But seriously, some of it was so ridiculous. Hrithik’s character jumps out of a crashing plane, lands on the wing of another plane, and then climbs into the cockpit? Come on. I actually laughed out loud in the theatre, and the whole crowd laughed with me, but it was that good laugh. You know the one? The “we love this kind of nonsense” laugh. We’re all just willingly suspending our disbelief because we paid good money for it.
The guy next to me ate popcorn for two straight hours. How is that possible? His tub was bigger than my head. And he was so loud. During that quiet scene—the reflection one—his crunching was like thunder. I almost turned to him and was like, “Dude, show some respect, this is art.” But I didn’t. Because I was also slurping the last dregs of my giant Coke through a straw, making that horrible sucking sound. We’re all just monsters in the cinema.
And the villain, the new guy, what’s his name… I already forgot, doesn’t matter. He has this one line, during the final confrontation, he says to Hrithik, “We are not enemies. We are two sides of the same coin.” And I was like, oh please, not that line. That line has been in every single blockbuster ever made. But he said it with such… conviction. I actually nodded. What is wrong with me? Is it 1:44 AM and my brain has just shut down?
Walking out of the theatre, the world outside felt so quiet, so slow. The car lights on the street were all blurry. My senses were still stuck in the movie, amplified by a thousand. I kept expecting a car to explode or for someone to drop from the sky.
My brain is fried. I need to sleep. But I’m probably going to dream of slow-motion explosions and Hrithik Roshan’s reflection in a puddle.
That’s it. 8/10.
Ishaan.