Toonpur Ka Superrhero

Rating: **

Movie Review: Toonpur Ka Superrhero A reel-life superhero turns into a real-life superhero. That’s the thrust of animated feature ‘Toonpur Ka Superrhero’,which plonks Aditya ( Devgn) into a cartoon city,and has him duel with bad toons to save good toons.

The charm of a film which has real life characters interacting with cartoon characters lies in just how real it all feels ( remember the sublime ‘Who Killed Roger Rabbit?’) . And this is where the film manages to confuse: some of it is fairly slick,the rest is strictly amateurish,almost as if the portions were shot by different people.

The good toons are uniformly dull,and clichéd. A rolling pin-wielding Gujju ben with a hideous accent,a nerd with what is it,a Southie touch,a curvaceous Anglo-Indian who’s all over our hero,a too-chirpy Sardar boy,who’s also a big fan. A mix of genres makes it even more confusing : there’s a Gandalf-like character (from ‘The Lord Of The Rings’),and Aditya merrily switches from playing a cowboy and a gamer and,of course,a superhero.

The bad guys are a little better,especially a sharply-dressed,motorcycle-riding Yamdoot,or is it Ramdoot,who does a great energetic dance : this is where the film shines,and you wonder why this same skill isn’t evident in the rest. In the real life part,Devgn and Kajol play husband-and-wife,and parents to a couple of kids,who like most Bollywood kids,could have been better cast,and better trained.

Good for little kids who haven’t been exposed to the delights of cartoon network. If there any left.

shubhragupta@expressindia.com