Krrish' Fail to Rescue Movie

Bollywood's First Superhero 'Krrish' Fails to Rescue Movie

June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Rakesh Roshan, the director with the ''K'' fetish (all his movie titles begin with the letter), returns after a three-year hiatus with ''Krrish,'' Bollywood's first superhero film.

Roshan successfully pushed the Bollywood envelope when he made ''Koi...Mil Gaya'' (2003), introducing science fiction to mainstream Hindi cinema audiences, with the help of a tale borrowed from ''E.T.'' The visitor from outer space, Jadoo, imparted superhuman powers to the hero of that film, which was built around son Hrithik Roshan's strong central performance.

''Krrish,'' the sequel, plays out differently, though it picks up the story from the first film. Rohit and his wife are dead but his powers live on in their son Krishna (Roshan again), hidden away in a remote, mountainous idyll by his grandmother.

There, Krishna outruns horses, leaps across rivers, bounds across mountainsides and generally gives us a fair idea of his mental and physical prowess. The grandmother (Rekha) has secreted him away, fearful she will lose him if word of his special powers becomes known to the outside world. But lose him she must because love comes calling in the guise of Priya (Priyanka Chopra), one of a group of adventure tourists.

Priya goes back to Singapore and Rohit follows. The island- city is where the transformation into superhero takes place as Krishna dons a broken plastic mask and turns into Krrish to rescue a bunch of children from a burning circus tent.

Singapore is also where he finds Dr. Siddhant Arya, who holds the key to what happened to Krishna's father. That last part of the story is the only interesting bit of the film, which is a crashing bore for the most part, unrelieved even by the humor, which is quite forced anyway.

Not Connected

Rakesh Roshan, an expert at over-wrought Bollywood melodrama garnished with themes of rebirth and much gratuitous violence, is no good at the superhero film, the grammar of which is being defined elsewhere by younger directors steeped in the comic-book tradition and filled with the zealot's belief in the genre. Roshan just isn't very connected to that alternative universe.

If ''Krrish'' works at all at the box-office, it will be entirely because of Hrithik Roshan's tremendously energetic performance, combined with the ability to switch from child-like Krishna to the darker superhero persona. The director lavishes an almost fetishistic attention on the actor, lingering on the spectacular musculature of the young-man-who-will-be-superhero as Roshan runs in slow motion in his introductory scene.

Probably the most complete actor in Bollywood today, Roshan junior has held nothing back, to the extent of doing his own stunts. But while the makers have spent a lot on raising production values, ''Krrish'' just isn't slick enough, especially for a film released between ''Mission: Impossible III'' and ''Superman Returns.'' Besides which, all the leaping and bounding looks too much like the overdone, air-cycling routine in ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.''

'It' Girl

Apart from the lead character, Priyanka Chopra tries to give her lines some dignity and vigor. The closest thing to an 'It' girl in Bollywood since the fading of Kareena Kapoor, she almost matches her co-star spark for spark.

Naseeruddin Shah, as the villain, looks like he showed up for work in last night's clothes and the attitude to match. Rekha strikes all the wrong notes, looking scary and mean in some awful makeup, when she's supposed to be warm and grandmotherly.

The songs by music director Rajesh Roshan (the director's brother) are dull and mediocre, with the only half-decent track on the album left out of the film, which is already long at three hours. That said, Hrithik Roshan's trademark dancing skills are still first-rate and the musical sequences are watchable purely for this reason.

''Krrish'' actually does have an interesting storyline that might have worked in the hands of a director with a better grip on the treatment. Coming after the vastly underrated ''Lakshya'' (2004), this latest film is a letdown for Hrithik Roshan fans.

''Krrish'' was released in India on June 23.

hmmm looks like it didnt do as well as people had hoped it will