Monday, June 26, 2006

Krrish - A walk in the air

Last Sunday I saw the movie Krrish with my family. It was billed as a sequel to Koi Mil Gaya, which was released a few years ago.

If you tell a person the painting is wet, he will touch it to confirm it. If you tell a person about aliens in the outer space and that they are intelligent than us, dwellers of the Earth, he will readily believe you. Rakesh Roshan had exploited this fact to the hilt in the movie Koi Mil Gaya, in which aliens from space visit Earth and one of them who is left behind, befriend hero of that film, who is mentally challenged and gifts him extraordinary powers. It was a direct lift of E.T. I had seen Koi Mil Gaya with family. My kids, as they have not seen E.T., had loved it. Roshan carries forward this formula in Krrish. The hero of Koi Mil Gaya has now a son, who quite naturally, inherits all the extraordinary powers of his father.

The plotline of the movie is quite thin. Krishna alias Krrish (Hrithik Roshan) lives with his grandmother in a hilly place. Since he is blessed with high IQ and other extraordinary qualities, his grandmother wants to protects him from the world. Enter the heroine of the movie Priya (Priyanka Chopra) who is on paragliding cum adventure trip to the mountains with her friends. He, predictably saves her from a fall and immediately falls in love. Priya is a TV journalist working with Star TV in Singapore and invites Krishna for her selfish motives to Singapore. There Krishna becomes Krrish to save children from circus fire and also to take revange from the villian of the movie, who has keept his father in captivity for 20 years. The special effects or special prowess of Hrithik are on display towards the last 20 minutes of the movie, which are quite good and a novelty for the Hindi movies. Though, they seems to be lifted from some Hollywood or Hong Kong martial arts movies.

There are various holes in the script for example it is told that father of Krrish is in captivity for last 20 years, that make Krrish only 19 years old. Also, in a flashback scene which is supposed to have taken place 20 years ago, a mobile phone is shown. I think the mobile phones are not that old. At least in India they were introduced about 10 years ago. I think 20 years is a favourite phrase of writers of Hindi movies. Bees saal also sound good.

I spotted various endorsement of brands just to keep me occupied during the movie: Bournvita (gets also mentioned in a dialogue), Tide, Lays Chips, Hero Honda, Bombay Circus, Samsung and Star TV.

In movie Hrithik flies in the air, climbes trees faster than a orangutan, sets bones, plays a fireman, discoman, runs faster than a horse, catches fish with bare hands, etc. etc. Towards the end of the movie he also stop not one but two bullets. He is superhero, after all. He is Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Discoman, Tarzan all in one.

Krissh is indeed strictly for the kids. It will also be seen by the adults who will be dragged into cinemas by their childrens, like I was. The film was quite long (about 3 hours) and had no hummable songs. Comedey was conspicuous by absence. After making Hrithik a super-hero, Director Rakesh Roshan should have also created a super-villian for Hritihik to fight with. The villian of the movie is mad scientist played tounge in cheek by Naseeruddin Shah, who wants to invent a computer which can foretell future. He is the only one to provide some comic relief.

The film for me was boringly tedious or tediously boring. I am not sure which one it was. But it certainly was one of them.

A funny review of Krrish is here.

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