The mythological-inspired story, affected cuteness, unnecessary romance: staples of most animation films we’ve seen in the last few years. The kids are not liking it, the adults are bereft of choice; and yet, animation makers just won’t learn. Here a blue baby elephant curls to his mama (Dimple Kapadia) and asks about his dad Yudhvir Singh. The mother gives him the usual `never trust humans’ tripe. The kiddo, called Jumbo, creeps out to look for his dad. There he sees a girl elephant Sonia (Lara Dutta) who says things like, “mujhe dekh ke to sab gir jaate hain,” when he accidentally slips. So far, there’s been no moving forward of the father-son track we believed the film was about. When he goes back, his mother (a Nirupa Roy animated avatar) is missing.
Some goons who are war with the town injure Sonia and Jumbo jumps to the rescue (heck, even Bollywood has moved on from this tired cliché; why subject kids to it?). It’s intermission time already. Next is a preachy song that goes something like `Badhte Chalo…’. An owl (Rajpal Yadav) falls for a messenger bird and calls it “rasmaali”. That this obnoxious character’s surname is Yadav and it speaks in the UP dialect is hardly funny. While fighting a tiger, Jumbo thrashes it calling it “choohe ki aulad”. A bit crass for a children’s movie, one wondered.
Now grown up, Jumbo is to go to war for the good-hearted Prince Vikram against the goons. Sonia wistfully says goodbye enquiring, “Mahal ki hathniyon ko dekh ke, mujhe bhool to nahin jaoge?” The audience laughed at this bizarre dialogue. The children watched zombie-like, unabsorbed and unfeeling. Time for another song. (The only interesting song befitting a children’s film was the beginning Akshay Kumar number.)
The film is clearly too simplistic and boring. The makers have chalked out one-dimensional central characters, and there are no interesting side characters to lift the spirit. If we look at super-successful animations like Shrek, we realize that side characters like the always-in-trouble Donkey and Puss-in-Boots are as fascinating as Shrek and Princess Fiona.
Next up, Jumbo is reunited with his mother (no explanation about her sudden disappearance) with dialogues like “mere laal”, and “chod do meri maa ko.” The war scenes are stylistically shot, but the soldiers, battle-cry, swords etc, kids have already seen in other mythologicals. We know, already, that Jumbo will emerge victorious against the evil elephant (Gulshan Grover) and be reunited with his love as well (our Hindi films have also evolved from writing the heroine’s role as just the love interest; it’s that much more disappointing seeing such a simpering, background role for the lady elephant here.) The ending credits give a peek into dubbing sessions where we see Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Asrani, Dimple Kapadia and other artistes at work.
Of all, Akshay Kumar adds the most chutzpah to his animated character. The 3D animation is competent, but let down by the formulaic narrative. Our little viewers need a break from the worn-out stories, stuffy dialogue, and dull characters that are routinely put in front of them. When will our animations learn to have some fun?
