Jaane tu is sweet, but not saccharine sweet. It’s more the fun, peppy sweet. Yet it does not reach the heights of a lasting entertainer, mainly because of the sudden limp in the story 3/4ths way down the line. It just came across as aimless and rather random after that.

However, the spoof-ish undercurrent running through the movie is completely adorable. The digs on all things “Hindi cinema” are thoroughly enjoyable. And I could almost sense how the writer is having a hearty laugh by having the audience lap up, the mother of all clichéd climaxes, without complaining.

The college campus feel of the movie is going to make the young identify with the characters and their situations. And the slightly less young will enjoy the nostalgia. I liked the way various relationships were built. Be it the mother-son, the father from the portrait-son, the brother-sister, and of course friends and lovers - all these equations came across well but yet had an anti-climatic feel about it.

Genelia and Imran Khan both bring a breath of freshness on the screen. It’s as much their timing as it’s the natural, much needed casualness they afford their characters that make them dear to the audience. I especially liked the insecure, confused, disappointed body language that Genelia presented in the second half. We know for sure that they are here for the long haul, at least for the chirpy, less serious kind of roles.

Anything “Aamir Khan” has to have music adds to the ambience of the movie and its true with this one too. So, even with a forced in number like “pappu can’t dance” you find yourself swaying to the music. While there isn’t a shred of doubt that “kabhi kabhi aditi” is one of the most romantic numbers to have come out in recent times, “pappu can’t dance” and “nazre milana” have also grown on me with repeated hearings.

To be honest, I just don’t feel right judging a movie while sitting in the corner seat of the third row (from the screen). The camera angles, the colors, the sound - all seem off to me. So, I think it’d be unfair to make any comment on any of these aspects.

So, yeah, I had a smile on throughout the movie but the base story is a little disappointing in terms of originality. I felt a little cheated by the ultimate turn of events somehow didn’t go with the tone of the movie and thus made it land in the “much ado about nothing” category.

It has to be a strong movie to leave an impression even after 21 hours have passed since the movie got over. Even if the strongest urge is to yell at the makers of the movie asking them, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” The love is as drab and unengaging as could be. 2050 looks appealing for about 5 seconds. And what story they were talking about here?

I need an explanation. How can a movie set in 2050 have a song every 15 minutes? The phenomenon has reduced in the last few years. Are we going to do a full circle? At least, I hope by then, we’ll have an “ignore” button lurking around somewhere that can be pressed whenever chords play together in the name of music. At the very least, maybe all songs can be played together during interval. What bliss! In queue for coffee instead of listening to lulling music you would hate to get up from.

Anyway, time travel can be made to twist your gray cells in ways unknown to them. But, here they actually manage to make it boring by showing us how 48 years from now, we’d have a hologram irritate us while we are shopping, and how product placements are going to get only worse. I actually had enough time amidst the super-slow proceedings to actually pray that I’d be no more by 2050.

To be honest, I hadn’t gone in with any major expectations from the story. I was hoping for many firsts as far as technical wizardry in Hindi cinema goes. Zilch. I thought a sci-fi movie would mean mind-boggling action. There was action, but ‘mind-numbing’ would describe it better. I was intrigued by the decision to open with Dalip Tahil and a random woman playing secretary, both of whom have no relevance to the rest of the story. I was shocked at the pace of the first few minutes in an action movie.

I revised my expectations right there. Who said action movies have to move at a fast pace? They are defying the narrative style of the genre, why walk towards slamming the door at them in just 15 minutes. Yet, I couldn’t help smirking at the fluttering animated butterfly. The smirk turned to an eye-roll the second time, to a ‘no way’ the third and an exasperated helplessness overtook after that.

When the script is so loose…did I just call something non-existent ‘loose’?…anyway, when the script is such, I think it is unfair to judge the performances. Lousy lines cannot make even the best of actors woo their audience. Yet, Priyanka Chopra did a relatively decent job of portraying the duality in her two characters. I seriously don’t want to make a call on Harman Baweja just yet.

The Baweja family must have poured their heart into this one, but I can see only brickbats coming their way. For a story that, according to director’s note at the official site, was conceived 9 years ago, the way the movie was shot felt very superficial. Throughout I got the feel that a location or stunt was chosen and the story was more or less woven around that.

Also, I think it is the disproportionate amount spent on marketing to be blamed. Had they not created such hype, the shock of watching a bad movie might have softened. On the other hand, had they not created a movie with such random logic, goofed-up concept, fake romance, token villain (geez) and….aah too late for such wishful thoughts!

You know what the silver lining is though? Poverty will be eradicated 42 years from now - I couldn’t spot Dharavi in Mumbai (the largest slum in the city). Three cheers to that one!

thoda pyaar thoda magic is a crash course in moral science for second graders and below. And I’m pretty sure this target audience is going to thoroughly enjoy the lesson because it has song and dance, cartoons and naughtiness. So, parents can sit happy, because kids are taught animal rights, civic sense, love over war, forgiveness, importance of bonding over blood relations, being both a graceful winner and loser, religious tolerance all in a little over two hours. And I’m pretty sure there must be a couple I missed out on.

You know what this means for the adults, right? One hell of a sappy movie! Over-idealistic to the hilt, and indigestibly sweet. I doubt even songs with underwater shots of a bikini-clad Ameesha Patel can compensate for that. In fact, that’s a very high price to pay for tolerating the shrill character she plays. I know-I know, that’s what the character demands, yada, yada.

But, it hurts to watch the same excuse being used for Saif Ali Khan. He wears one sullen look throughout the movie despite being capable of very varied range of expressions. True, his character is very somber. But, the man just couldn’t cry or make me feel for him in emotional scenes. Of course, blame is equally apportioned between his talent and the way the character develops. The transformation from aloofness to bonding, from long silences to talking his heart out is a little too quick.

Is it just me or does Rani Mukherjee really look and feel almost the same in most of her movies? It’s not like she isn’t trying out different roles. Yet, somehow today while watching the movie I got this feeling of “been there, seen that”. Maybe it has something to do with that extra layer of make-up they find necessary to apply to make her look fairer. Anyhow, something was amiss and everyone involved just felt like they were going through the motions.

Also, while watching the movie today, I suddenly realized how my kids idolize RV and Shona, the characters Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee play in Ta Ra Rum Pum. I can so visualize them now idolizing Ranbir and Geeta after watching this one.

Does that mean when they grow up they are going to say, “we grew up watching Saif or Rani who were in movies for kids like us” just like we say today, “we grew up watching Al Pacino or Amitabh Bachchan who made us wanna be like them.” Scary, eh? If that’s the onus they carry, they have to get better than this, because they are so capable of doing it.

I digress. Coming back to the movie at hand, the dialogues and situations are pretty plain given that it’s supposed to be about four really naughty kids. And the children enacting these roles are not super-adorable either. In a way it’s nice to see regular kids playing regular kids. And it’s better to have them do nothing compared to having them do the same old tricks that kids pull to harass adults. But that also means nothing really exciting is happening. Although some of the tributes given to various movies from yesteryears are cute.

Also, the usual melodious and lively number from Kunal Kohli movies is missing here. Although I loved the way all of them were visualized. The choreography was bare minimum and the overall effect used was charming.

The main problem though is we are in touch with a lot more cinema - Indian and foreign - compared to the generations before us ever were. So, obviously after this kind of exposure, it would be really difficult to spot something ‘new’ in terms of animation and special effects. The onus then completely lies in creatively utilizing these effects. And that the thoda pyaar thoda magic team manages to put together well. Yeah, things can appear and disappear, and inanimate stuff can dance, but how and when they do it is what counts, and that works pretty well here.

The question remains - why don’t we have movies that kids and adults can enjoy together?

I couldn’t stop laughing for about a minute after the credits started rolling. And had a smile on my face for the next few minutes. Nope! Even the most easily amused can’t term this one a comedy. I am just kicked by how the audience is taken for a ride. It’s not a super-fun ride because by no means is it a great cinematic experience or an entertainer. It’s just a smart concept that didn’t manage to keep me hooked.

In the interest of sounding a little less abstract and yet be truthful to the theme of this blog, I’m going to use an analogy. Say, you are a teacher who’s going to introduce a new topic to the class today. To make the lesson more interesting you choose to play a game. Now the idea of playing a game is really neat, but, BUT if you choose a boring game, you have lost your class. Your creativity is admirable, but the class is not engaged.

So, the idea of playing a game here is the broad concept of Via Darjeeling and I’m going to call the choice of game, the basic story. The conversation between a bunch of people discussing an event can only be as interesting as the event. As a character points out, this discussion could have been a classic study of human nature. But it’s not, because the basic premise is lame.

The story is somewhat saved by the ever-reliable Kay Kay Menon. The subtle changes in his character as he moves from one part of the movie to the next, are absolutely attributable to his performance. You can actually see some of it in Parvin Dabas’ act too. Sonali Kulkarni’s hammed up performance can also be passed off under the guise of her character’s eccentricity and ambiguity.

But, the entire set-up of friends talking, having fun, quibbling with each other, came off as extremely superficial. If one relationship oozed with extreme familiarity at one point, in the next, the same characters would be saying things to each other that made them seem like strangers. There’s only fleeting interplay amongst the characters.

So, while the individual characters were detailed, the relationships were very broadly sketched. And we are talking about the likes of Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sandhya Mridul, Prroshant Narayanan here. I have liked their work in one movie or the other, so am not willing to blame them completely for lack of the proverbial chemistry.

Compound that with the overall drawling tone of the movie and you can’t be blamed for getting a wee bit fidgety. And if that wasn’t enough, the songs are absolutely misplaced, and don’t go with the ambiance created by the movie.

Yet, the director cannot be written off, because he tried. Tried something not ventured into easily by Hindi cinema - a story without a closure. There’s after all no conflict that needs resolution. And trying out gets brownie points around here. Along the way, he also commented on the basic nature of humans to indulge themselves in something that doesn’t concern them whatsoever. And though it doesn’t hook the audience, it surely teases them right through to the end.

Since this is first time I am guest posting out here I feel I probably should mention that I am extremely shallow. You will learn more as you read.

Given the current fare running in the movie halls the past few months I was hoping for a release that would have me rolling in the aisles. Get Smart does not disappoint. In fact I think I should go back for a second screening since I don’t think I did the movie justice with the amount I laughed the first time. There is only so much you can laugh before your sides start protesting.

The movie stars Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. Two actors who never particularly interested me when I saw their initial movies. I saw Carell first in Evan Almighty. The only thing lower than my opinion of him was my opinion of that movie.

I found Anne Hathaway plain even after the transformation in Princess Diaries because she had weird knees. All dislikes went out of the window with the string of movies that followed showing her in better light (and probably better make up). The loss of puppy fat and her sudden aversion towards clothes probably had a lot to do with my decision as well.

The situation in the movie is not original. Carell’s character, Max Smart holds a desk job at an Intelligence Agency and aspires to be a field agent. With typical insensitivity the agency keeps him chained to the desk. A security breach that compromises the identities of all their agents finally gives Max the chance he was waiting for.

The cinematography is by the book. There are no experimentations or any alternative styles that have been adapted. Editing to the untrained eye is pretty smooth and this movie was never meant to have an arty angle. While transitions are pretty smooth, the action sequences might get a viewer to do double takes. Whether it was to save on costs or time or done with a specific purpose I guess we might never know but the high paced, fast take action sequences have been shot on a digital camera as opposed to a film camera that is utilized in the rest of the film. Or it might be just to mask the fact that neither Anne Hathaway nor Steve Carell have done any high flying action roles prior to this film and lacked the proper knowledge of executing them.

What follows, of course, cannot be told without breaching this blog’s central theme. Do prepare yourself for outrageous action and stunts. You won’t have time to dwell on thinking how unrealistic any of them were since at this point your logic has stopped functioning. That’s a good thing. On my hilarity scale it ranks pretty high. Euro Trip, Ice Age 1 & 2; Get Smart definitely follows that list.

Of course, the theme of friends having fun together is hardly new or “different”. But if the gags are intentionally funny, fresh or presented with freshness, devoid of toilet humor, and fairly non-adult, I’m in.

Doesn’t mean that De Taali doesn’t have such quips or has a water-tight script. Hardly! Its just that there are “other” really funny situations and jokes too. Also, at most times, the humor is situation driven rather than a situation being forced in to accommodate the lines. Another round of applause for the writer because he actually made the girls relevant and funny in the comedy genre. If only they could have sewn it together into a coherent plot.

Anyway, the thing about laughing out loud and so hard-n-long that the neighbor gives you a long stare is that you begin to let go your requirements of “good cinema”. First you suspend your disbelief, then you put your brain to the proverbial rest for a couple of hours, then you give in.

Give in to the silliness of it all. Give in to the eccentric side characters and their comic relief sub-plots. It doesn’t happen to me too often, but when it does even a couple of those hearty laughs make the movie worth it. However the completely haywire last half hour and the abrupt, casual and ridiculous climax is absolutely unforgivable. Also references to a particular support group are in bad taste and don’t go with the otherwise sensitive tone of the movie.

Ritesh Deshmukh who plays a-new-plan-a-minute Paresh Gurudev is as good with his comic timing as ever. He actually looks slimmer and sleeker than Ayesha Takia playing the loving, caring Amrita. But being on the “chubby” side with almost constantly braided hair makes her character more adorable, more girl-next-door, more “identifiable with” type. Its nice to see a female lead not oozing her sexuality on us.

Aftab Shivdasani is a pleasant surprise. He is the affluent Abhishek who falls in true love with every other girl he meets. The man actually has the potential to make you smile! In order to bring out contrast between Amrita and Kartika’s mysterious character, Rimi Sen is given a tanned, sexy look. She is a revelation too. It is amazing how the women in De Taali show that all they need is a reasonably well written character.

I actually liked the fact that we were not entertained to a whole lot of back-story of all the characters. Only that much was revealed about their background as was necessary to move the plot forward. But, this has its own drawbacks. Whenever a particular plot point is disclosed, your mind travels back to when the relevant piece of information was told to you first, and in a way you feel manipulated.

I know, it sounds like I’m asking for just the right amount of information that “I” want. But doesn’t the art lie in making the movie so engaging that these thoughts do not come to my mind while I’m watching it? Overall though, I enjoyed being with the here-and-now of the characters. Especially considering that a possible alternative would be a voiceover reading out each character’s resume to acquaint us with them.

Yet, I’m sure the movie could’ve been liked by many more if it had been a good 30 minutes shorter. And though the foot-tapping numbers have decent lyrics and are set to some cool choreography, they are still out of place. Any day, I would prefer fewer songs to a 2 hour+ movie.