Tubelight
For nine years, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has been using the lucrative Eid holidays as a push for his movies — and with great success. His last two films, the wrestling drama Sultan (2016) and the adventure comedy Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) were box office scorchers. Khan will try to continue his excellent run with Tubelight, an ambitious period film with the India-China war of 1962 as a backdrop. The actor reunites with his Bajrangi Bhaijaan director Kabir Khan, and plays a simpleton who is suddenly drawn into the conflict as he searches for his brother, played by real-life sibling Sohail Khan.
“I am not in serious movies that I wouldn’t watch myself. If I want to give a message then I will just text [SMS] and I am not going to spend two and a half hours putting my message on screen,” Salman told Gulf News tabloid! matter-of-factly recently in an interview.
Transformers: The Last Knight
Franchise fatigue setting in? Hold on to your hats as Mark Wahlberg returns with his alien robot friends for the fifth instalment of the movie. Optimus Prime, the head of the Autobots (the good guys) is missing, and Wahlberg’s character Cade teams up with Bumblebee as well as an astronomer Sir Edmond Burton, played by none other than Sir Anthony Hopkins, to learn more about the Transformers. This is supposedly an origin story with a lot of air time for Bumblebee, setting him up for his spin-off. Yes, more Transformers movies are coming, whether you like it or not.
Overdrive
Model and aspiring actor Scott Eastwood returns to the big screen with his film about two car thief brothers who journey to the south of France for new opportunities. They wind up in the cross hairs of the local crime boss, who has a rare and priceless car collection. Think fast cars and loads of action scenes. To celebrate the release, the newly refurbished Novo Cinemas in Dubai Festival City is hosting a 12-day Overdrive Classic Car Exhibition along with the company Nostalgic Classic Cars at the mall’s main atrium.
Tigers
Jackie Chan is back. This Chinese action comedy released last year but now comes in the UAE for Eid. Set in the ‘40s, it’s about a railroad worker who leads a team of freedom fighters to oppose the Japanese in order to get food for the poor. With no weapons, they use whatever they can to stop the enemy, Jackie Chan-style.
Duvvada Jagannadham
This Telugu film, also called DJ, stars South Indian hearthrob Allu Arjun and was extensively shot in the UAE. Directed by Harish Shankar and filmed at various locations across Abu Dhabi, including the Abu Dhabi Global Market and the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec), the romantic comedy is about a simple chef (who is actually a cop) who takes on the powers that be. It also stars Pooja Hegde and features Abu Dhabi as a sleek, sophisticated metropolis.
Antar Ibn Shaddad
This Arabic comedy with Egyptian comedian Mohammad Hinedi as lead, is about a man who discovers he is the grandson of Antar Ibn Shadad, a pre-Islamic Arab knight and explorer. He decides to contact the Banni Abess tribe in order to claim his inheritance of the treasures of Antar Ibn Shaddad. Upon his arrival, however, the tribe insist he marries his cousin in order to continue their blood line for generations to come.
