Whatever you do, you shouldn’t make a kids’ movie that drones and bores. Okay, granted, I am not an authority on what bores kids, especially considering I am not one anymore. But I have a strong feeling this will not work for kids.

First, kids are exposed to much better animation. Cannot fault the makers on this one. Because given the budget constraints, visual creativity has been used to the optimum. But, would kids really care about “value for money”?

Second, for a regular good vs. evil story, this one has too many characters. I am not underestimating the average kids’ intellect. It’s just that except for 3-4 characters, none of the others are well-established. This doesn’t give enough material for kids to love or fear the characters.

Third, all the humorous spoof-like references to hindi movies of the 70s or cricketers or politicians, will be completely lost on kids. So, could that mean that the movie is not for kids? What’s in it for the adults, then?

The idea is novel and thus interesting. But, the execution is haphazard and abrupt. The writing too is not the best. Mythology becomes fantasy becomes drama which suddenly becomes an outright preachy social message. And thus no justice is done to any one theme.

The songs are just about average and I couldn’t hear the lyrics because the music was way too loud compared to the voices. The music builds-up well but lacks a punch at the end of the songs.

That said, some of the lines and situations are very funny and some of the visualizations very creative. There are a few metaphors too. But overall, it suffers from not having a specific target audience. In its attempt to have something for everybody, it ends up becoming nothing in particular for anybody.

Of course, adults and kids are not mutually exclusive targets as an audience. But, unfortunately, the bits for adults in Return of Hanuman will be enjoyed only by adults and same goes for the parts that kids would enjoy. Thus, overall, it is one of those which you would want the option of multi-tasking with. At home along with work or play and a movie on in the background.