A multi-layered fudge

Ajay Devgn claimed that the makers of Who Framed Roger Rabbit had said he deserved an Oscar for his role in Toonpur Ka Superhero, in which he mostly does a one-man act, his co-stars being cartoons.

True, the actor has done his bit as Aditya Kumar, a reel hero fighting evil in toonland, but we miss the fire in him in movies where he shared screen with flesh-and-blood co-stars. The film has embarked to set a trend and does make some ground, yet has to go miles to carve a niche. The writers, Kireet Khurana (also the director) and Ragi Bhatnagar, have probably done their homework on Indian and British classics, fantasy fiction and Bollywood well, for all these influences lay coiled up in the nearly two-hour plot.

The storyline is a la Ramayan, with ‘good’ toons or Devtoons fighting the ‘bad’ toons or Asurtoons. A Harry Potteresque touch comes in with the real world alongside the toon one, where all it takes to enter the latter is to jump into a drain. Bollywood is in dollops in the movie. So we see the hot toon chick Loveena, not at all ‘size-zero’, trying to lure Aditya, Bolly, a die-hard Aditya fan, Gappy, a toon version of Bollywood’s gold-clad bard Bappi Lahiri, and Rub toon, a demi God-like character who breathes Hindi films.

Kajol and the kids are more of appendages, whose show up in the hints of Devgn being a family man and his itching to bash up the baddies for his son.

Satire is lavishly spread, as characters take potshots at Bollywood’s traits and even at democracy, which Aditya is trying to restore by taking on Jagaru, the Asurtoon leader, first by Gandhigiri and then via gaming.

The makers probably feel such a mixed bag will help them enter the wide and ‘naive’ world of children. How much they succeed is to be waited and watched. For the kids of today are in word and deed, the parents of their elders.