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Checkmate Review | An Atrocity Inflicted on Native Malayalis by NRI Malayalis

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Checkmate Review | An Atrocity Inflicted on Native Malayalis by NRI Malayalis

In one of the interviews for Checkmate, I heard Anoop Menon talking about why he decided to do the film eventually. His wife told him that as he is anyway doing a lot of trashy movies these days, why don’t he just do this one too? Well, the end result of that push from his better half has only resulted in the creation of a film that can damage your brain cells. Checkmate is basically an amateur short film that got good funds to enhance its production quality. With a generic story getting tortured by silly screenplay experiments, the movie from Ratish Sekhar is easily the best thing you can recommend to your enemy.

Phillip Kurien, the head of a pharma company that is facing allegations of illegal drug trials, is our central character. His partner Jessy is trying to help him from all the legal troubles by doing her bit. What we ultimately see in the film is the history of these two, the people connected with them, and what they had to go through because of their inhuman actions.

It actually took a while for me to understand the whole story because the film’s screenplay has this nature of going after characters pointlessly for a long time. The narrative shifts from 3 months ago, 12 months ago, the day of the kidnap, 5 minutes before the kidnap, etc., in a very pretentious way to make the audience feel that some sophisticated filmmaking is happening. But the dialogues, be it the Malayalam ones or the English ones, are so theatric that some of them reminded me of that Vipranasam short film. Looking at the way the writing gets lost in unnecessary subplots, you would feel like poking the director to cut the chase and come to the point multiple times during the film.

Anoop Menon appears in multiple looks in the film, and the very first one reminded me of that deleted scene in the climax of Mohanlal’s Mr. Fraud. The guy who sat behind me was saying, “What happened to Khureshi-Ab’raam?” The name of the character might well be Phillip Kurien, but Anoop Menon makes sure that Phillip will act like Anoop Menon. This is perhaps the second misleading thing Lal has been a part of after that rummy ad. Rekha Harindran, who makes her debut through the film, has won the Kerala Film Critics Award for her performance in this movie. Being someone who reviews films, I just want to clarify that I have no association with that organization. There are a lot of debut actors in the film, and I think they all have this hope that the audience would applaud them, like how families root for kids in kindergarten during the annual day performance.

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The story, screenplay, music, cinematography, and direction of the film are handled by Ratish Sekhar, and by the end of it, you should feel that he shouldn’t have burdened himself with all those responsibilities. The camera movements are so poor that even the short films made in Kerala with minimal budget have better visual sensibility. Shot division and camera angles are so bizarre. The visuals change from a medium close-up to a low-angle one in split seconds without any motivation, and the editing done by Prejish Prakash with far too many unnecessary cuts would make you think that he was getting paid for the number of cuts. There is a fight sequence towards the end inside a boxing academy, and the conversations that happen after the goons realize they have kidnapped the wrong person is unintentionally comical.

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. This is a quote by the great James Cameron. What he forgot to mention was that show it to your friends and family and don’t release it in theaters.

Final Thoughts

With a generic story getting tortured by silly screenplay experiments, the movie from Ratish Sekhar is easily the best thing you can recommend to your enemy.

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Movie Reviews

Super Duperr Movie Review: A wild ride filled with laughter and emotion

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Super Duperr Movie Review: A wild ride filled with laughter and emotion

The Times of India

Apr 07, 2026, 3:24 PM IST

3.0

Super Duperr is a riot in all senses of the word. A wild ride filled with laughter and emotion it presents an unusual matchup of traditional and modern values.Rohit (Lalit Prabhakar) and Isha (Vidula Chougule) are a young couple trying to make their mark in the entertainment industry. They take their relationship to the next level and purchase a flat in Mumbai with their savings. It is here that they realise that they have fallen for a scam when the same house is sold to and currently occupied by a rural family. What follows is a series of clashes and learning moments that test the morality of both parties. The story is a fun take on a series of real world scams and as such has a very interesting premise. The Sameer Asha Patil film however chooses to take a detour in favour of certain stretched out gags and slow motion shots. What could have been a deep exploration of the two worlds colliding, ends up being a formulaic checklist of a wedding song, an action sequence and a few slapstick gags. These are passable of course, but the ho-hum nature of the story’s progression feels under utilized. Super Duperr does offer impactful emotional sequences, notably the equation between the parents (Shashank Shende and Nirmiti Sawant) and his eldest son (Hrishikesh Joshi). The music and cinematography are well executed and add abundantly to the viewing experience. Super Duperr set a rich tapestry only to ultimately doodle in a corner. While it could have benefitted from adding more inter-family interactions, it remains a good watch for this weekend.

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Why Critics Despise The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (But Audiences Love It)

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Why Critics Despise The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (But Audiences Love It)

The verdict is in, and critics have widely panned The Super Mario Galaxy Movie while audiences have universally praised the family-friendly sequel. This follow-up to the fan-favorite The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been in theaters for about a week since its debut on April 1, and it has already had the best box office opening in 2026, earning more than $190 million over its 5-day domestic weekend. Worldwide, it has amassed $372 million, making it the fifth largest global opening ever for an animated film. Despite the movie being a massive box office hit, however, the review scores are terribly low for the video game adaptation, and there are several reasons why.

Fans vs. critics on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

As of April 6, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has a mediocre 42% Tomatometer score from a total of 175 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes while holding a fantastic 89% Popcornmeter score from over 5,000 verified user ratings. That’s a stark 47-point difference between critics and users.

A similarly wide disparity can be found on Metacritic as well, where the sequel has a “generally unfavorable” Metascore of a 37 based on 45 reviews, despite it earning a “generally favorable” user score of a 7.9 (basically, a 42-point difference).

This gulf between professional reviews and user reviews for this sequel likely isn’t too surprising by fans of the original 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie. That film earned a 59% Tomatometer but a 95% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has “mixed or average” 46 Metascore but a “universal acclaim” user score of 8.1.

To be fair, the range of critic scores for the film is vast on Metacritic, with about seven reviews above a 60 and fifteen reviews below a 40. ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim give it a “Good” 7 out of 10 rating, noting that “it doesn’t necessarily deepen the emotional or narrative complexity of the franchise, but it refines what worked before amplifies it on a grander scale.” However, many other reviews are far less kind, particularly the 0 out of 5 rating from The Times that calls the film “ugly, overbranded, lifeless digital marketing vomit” and a review from Vulture that says it’s like being “asphyxiated in a ball pit filled with candy.”

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Meanwhile, multiple user reviews on Metacritic are shocked at the reviews. One called the low Metascore “absolutely ridiculous,” while another asked readers to ignore the critics altogether. A different user wrote, “It’s wild to see professional critics giving this a zero. It feels like they’ve never actually picked up a controller.” And to that person’s credit, we did find that a few critics who gave low scores admitting that the film wasn’t meant for them or that they had never played a Mario game before. Indeed, the movie is chock full of Nintendo references and easter eggs, something that Mario fans will appreciate far more than anyone who doesn’t know or care about the difference between a Super Mushroom and a Fire Flower.

More broadly speaking, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has more than several traits that critics tend to dislike but that audiences enjoy. The first is that it’s a quick-paced, action-packed film, which features a handful of battles with Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Toad, Fox McCloud, Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Wart. Another is that it’s a comedic adventure with cartoonish gags that are age-appropriate for kids and humorous to Mario fans who are in on the joke. On top of that, the film is a family-friendly video game adaptation, a genre that doesn’t usually score well from critics. A Minecraft Movie, another box office smash that earned $960 million worldwide (and also starred Jack Black), was equally slammed by critics with a 47% Tomatometer but lauded by audiences with an 84% Popcornmeter.

Taken altogether, the movie was almost made in a lab for reviewers to despise and for audiences to praise as a nostalgic love letter to Nintendo. Regardless, despite how critics feel, they’ll need to brace themselves for more, since the Nintendo Cinematic Universe is looking like it will come sooner than later.

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

Watch I Know Exactly How I Die on VOD

The director of I Know Exactly How I Die is Alexandra Spieth, who ensures a tight pace and some gorgeous shots. She previously directed Stag and created and starred in the web-series [Blank] My Life. The screenplay comes from Mike Corey, and I do really like the plot and evolution of this story.

As already mentioned, the star Rushabh Patel is the executive producer. As a result, this movie is billed as “Rushabh Patel’s I Know Exactly How I Die“, which I am not a fan of. Unless Rushabh Patel is famous in ways I am not familiar with – nor is IMDb, as this is his first and so far only credit there.

This is like people wondering if Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is connected to Stranger Things, because the media keeps referring to it as a new show from The Duffer Brothers. Sure, they produced it, but Haley Z. Boston created the original story and wrote the screenplay. And she’s not even a newcomer.

Okay, rant over, but I just don’t understand the marketing and press decisions of it all.

Anyway, as already mentioned, the practical effects in I Know Exactly How I Die are gorgeous. Any slasher fan should enjoy the concept of the plot as well as those amazing practical effects. And yet, you will have to endure a little terrible CGI, but this is an indie production, so budget restraints come into play. Of course, so does choosing the best talent, and that did not happen for CGI here!

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I Know Exactly How You Die is out on VOD from April 7, 2026. You can rent it on Digital HD from your preferred platform, including Prime Video and Fandango at Home. The film will also be available on DVD.

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