Aladin : Sujoy Ghosh Budget: INR 50 Cr This movie produced, directed and written by Sujoy Ghosh comes as a welcome change from the regular run around the trees. Yes its a love story as well but isn't almost every movie made in bollywood a love story? Now Sujoy Ghosh has had a impressive stint with Jhankaar beats and Home Delivery. The former being something very down to earth for a movie freak to relate to and the latter, although an outright copy from a french movie still made a good impression. In Aladin the story was completely revamped to suit the Indian movie enthusiasts. Somehow I have a feeling that Sujoy very well knew that this movie will not be exactly appreciated by majority of the crowd. But as you know he went ahead and took the risk anyway. The result? - Surprisingly impressive.
Let me justify why I was impressed. We had 2 huge names playing strong characters. Amitabh Bachchan playing The Genie - Genius and our very own Sanjay Dutt plays The Ringmaster - An Ex-Genie. Now some of us may question why would a guy like Big B of such high caliber be in a kiddie movie prancing around playing magical pranks. The answer is playing a genie required screen presence. The audience need to feel the Aura he normally emits in any movie. The same logic was applied to Sanjay Dutt playing The Ring Master. He had this evil aura around him every time he came on the screen that was very impressive.
Now I believe that is not the only reason these two extraordinary people where requested to grace the characters with their names. I think it was the chemistry they shared in Kaante long back ago.
As I mentioned the story is completely revamped to suit the Indian audience as in the original cartoon movie Jaffer dupes Aladin into looking for the lamp whereas here Aladin was destined to have it.
The movie starts off normally in a city called Khwaish (fictional city of course) showing Aladin (Ritiesh Deshmukh) a loser orphan being bullied by kids in school just because his name is Aladin. He is asked to rub fake lamps by the bullies every time he is spotted. His miserable life continues to be the same when he enters college as well. Enter lady love Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandez - OMG she is soo cute) a friendly US return. Of course our protagonist falls in love with her on first sight. Aladin keeps making a fool of himself whenever she is around but somehow she finds it cute I guess.
At Alladin bday bash, held by Qasim (Sahil Khan - Lead bully) to impress Jasmine, Aladin is gifted yet another lamp this time by Jasmine from an antiques shop. Only this time its the real thing.
Enter Genius (Amitabh Bachchan) a cheerful lively genie who is eager to grant Aladin's 3 wishes and go on a vacation.
The rock-star Genius finds out its too late as our baddie The Ring Master (Sanjay Dutt an ex genie) is in town looking for the lamp as well.
We find out that The Ringmaster wants the lamp for himself to get back his powers from which he was exiled due to selfish reasons. The Ringmaster uses a mirror, he claims to be the Google in the magical world, and finds out that Aladin is destined to protect the lamp. And then we have the 2 genies display excellent martial art and war of words to defeat one another. Both the characters were played wonderfully by Big B and Sanju baba taking coolness and awesomeness to a new level.
The comedy/cheesy dialogues were well timed in the movie so yes there are a few good laughs for the audience as well.
Specially in the scene where The Ringmaster displays his joy rubbing the lamp and singing "Main dardi rub rub (rab rab) kardi" had us rolling on the floor laughing even though the whole darn movie theater didn't find it funny.
Sometimes I wonder if the Indian audience will ever grow out of KJo movies.
The special effects for good specially where Genius breaks the edge of a cliff diving down to save baby Aladin. When it comes to acting except the 2 genies none of them where impressive at all. Ritiesh needs to look for a new career soon if he doesn't do something about his pathetic acting skills. Jacqueline Fernandez, the Srilankan beauty, is just one film old and did a decent job. I fail to understand what actors like Ratna Patak, Victor Banerjee and Mita vahisht were doing or thinking.
All in all I can easily rate it 8/10
Let me justify why I was impressed. We had 2 huge names playing strong characters. Amitabh Bachchan playing The Genie - Genius and our very own Sanjay Dutt plays The Ringmaster - An Ex-Genie. Now some of us may question why would a guy like Big B of such high caliber be in a kiddie movie prancing around playing magical pranks. The answer is playing a genie required screen presence. The audience need to feel the Aura he normally emits in any movie. The same logic was applied to Sanjay Dutt playing The Ring Master. He had this evil aura around him every time he came on the screen that was very impressive.
Now I believe that is not the only reason these two extraordinary people where requested to grace the characters with their names. I think it was the chemistry they shared in Kaante long back ago.
As I mentioned the story is completely revamped to suit the Indian audience as in the original cartoon movie Jaffer dupes Aladin into looking for the lamp whereas here Aladin was destined to have it.
The movie starts off normally in a city called Khwaish (fictional city of course) showing Aladin (Ritiesh Deshmukh) a loser orphan being bullied by kids in school just because his name is Aladin. He is asked to rub fake lamps by the bullies every time he is spotted. His miserable life continues to be the same when he enters college as well. Enter lady love Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandez - OMG she is soo cute) a friendly US return. Of course our protagonist falls in love with her on first sight. Aladin keeps making a fool of himself whenever she is around but somehow she finds it cute I guess.
At Alladin bday bash, held by Qasim (Sahil Khan - Lead bully) to impress Jasmine, Aladin is gifted yet another lamp this time by Jasmine from an antiques shop. Only this time its the real thing.
Enter Genius (Amitabh Bachchan) a cheerful lively genie who is eager to grant Aladin's 3 wishes and go on a vacation.
The rock-star Genius finds out its too late as our baddie The Ring Master (Sanjay Dutt an ex genie) is in town looking for the lamp as well.
We find out that The Ringmaster wants the lamp for himself to get back his powers from which he was exiled due to selfish reasons. The Ringmaster uses a mirror, he claims to be the Google in the magical world, and finds out that Aladin is destined to protect the lamp. And then we have the 2 genies display excellent martial art and war of words to defeat one another. Both the characters were played wonderfully by Big B and Sanju baba taking coolness and awesomeness to a new level.
The comedy/cheesy dialogues were well timed in the movie so yes there are a few good laughs for the audience as well.
Specially in the scene where The Ringmaster displays his joy rubbing the lamp and singing "Main dardi rub rub (rab rab) kardi" had us rolling on the floor laughing even though the whole darn movie theater didn't find it funny.
Sometimes I wonder if the Indian audience will ever grow out of KJo movies.
The special effects for good specially where Genius breaks the edge of a cliff diving down to save baby Aladin. When it comes to acting except the 2 genies none of them where impressive at all. Ritiesh needs to look for a new career soon if he doesn't do something about his pathetic acting skills. Jacqueline Fernandez, the Srilankan beauty, is just one film old and did a decent job. I fail to understand what actors like Ratna Patak, Victor Banerjee and Mita vahisht were doing or thinking.
All in all I can easily rate it 8/10