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"Toonpur Ka Superhero" Movie Review
Director: Kirit Khurana
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Kajol, Ameya Pandya, Chinky Jaiswal
Rating: Three and a half (***1/2)
Advice: Total enter'toon'ment! An apt family outing this festive season.
Toonpur Ka Superhero takes you away from the daily hassles, traffic jams, deadlines and soaring onion prices. And it also makes for a great outing with your kids. Well, what better bargain can you get for
a cinema ticket? This film is total enter'toon'ment.
Welcome to the action-packed world of superstar Adiya Kumar (Ajay Devgn) whose dangerous stunts are performed by his double while he poses for the macho close-ups. In turn he misses out his son Kabeer's
(Ameya Pandya) Sports Day and when he reaches home – he finds a very sullen Kabeer accusing him of being a fake hero. He urges his father to be a real hero.
On the other hand, far away in Toonpur – toonasurs (baddies) led by Jagaaro are torturing devtoons (the good guys). The good gang is led by knowledgeable Gyandev and the funky Parsi scientist and it comprises Bolly, the cute Bollywood fan sikh kid, Big Ben - the rotund Gujju ben serving dhoklas and also a hard drubbing with her rolling pin to her detractors, Pandu - the cop, Guppy- the freaky musician loaded with golden ornaments, Lappy- the geeky South Indian and the Loveena – a Goan lass. They are perpetually at daggers drawn with the toonasurs led by menacing Jagaaro.
The good toons desire to be rescued by a superhero who will vanquish Jagaaro and restore peace to Toonpur. Bolly, the Punjabi boy suggests Aditya Kumar's name. He is assured that only his Bollywood superstar can do the honours. The toons "kidnap" Aditya accordingly and bring him to Toonpur.
The kidnap scene is most engaging what with Guppy wearing a human mask and climbing high on Pandu's shoulders – wearing a long coat and posing as a towering moneybags producer. The toon duo manages to whisk off Aditya from the film set to Toonpur. And when Aditya wakes up to find himself surrounded by his son's favourite TV toons, he believes he's become loony. But once the toons explain him the mission at hand, initially he's skeptical but later decides to take it up to redeem himself in the eyes of his young son. He wants to prove his worth to his son.
What happens eventually is that Aditya ends up confronting Jagaaro who challenges him to a computer game. A gaming console freak, Jagaaro has cunningly kidnapped Aditya's wife Priya (Kajol) and his two kids. Aditya has to play three levels of games in order to rescue each of his family members. The games with increasing levels of difficulty are easily engrossing as well as entertaining – especially for the young viewers.
The real heroes of the film are undoubtedly the well-animated toons. The flawlessly animation is indeed laudable. It is of international standards. It is fun watching this live-animation feature. The typical regional accents – like the pronounced Marathi tone of Pandu, Big Ben's gujju accent or Lappy's aiyayyo intonation – are a tad dated but the ostrich's Haryanvi accent or Loveena's Goan accent are amusing.
Ajay Devgn is totally convincing in his role in live as well as the animation portions of the film. Kajol has a miniscule role but she plays it with a becoming pizzazz – especially the scene where she tricks the monsters at the gate to tell her the right entry - is most impressive. Ameya Pandya as their son is cute.
Mubeen Farooqi's witty lines like – Guppy lamenting the loss of one of his many golden chains singing 'Chain(as in the necklace) bina chain kahan re…' or each of devtoons displaying his guns as my toon gun, umbrella gun, bailan(rolling pin) gun – Aditya Kumar just winking and saying "Devgun!" – spices up the proceedings.
On the whole a laudable live-animation enterprise by the makers. Director Kirit Khurana almost pulls off a coup with this film - only if Raagi Bhatnagar's story and screenplay had been racier in the first half which drags on a bit in establishing the characters. Also Anu Malik's music lacks the punch that could have had at least one hummable number. But for technical excellence and the family values that the film packs
in – it makes for an ideal watch this X'Mas.
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