Zokkomon

Rating:**

The buck-toothed Darsheel Safary who stole our hearts in ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is back with this sci-fi adventure in which he gets to play a superhero who defeats superstition and ignorance. The familiar ingredients for a child-friendly film are all here: smart kids,cruel relatives,and a masked crusader.

Kunal (Safary) is an orphan,yanked out of his cosy boarding school and dragged off to a village where he has to live with his evil uncle (Kher) and aunt (Chaddha). How he frees himself and the villagers from the clutches of his uncle and a greedy godman,with the help of a mad scientist type who lives in a haunted house,no less,is the rest of it.

Safary has to be the first superhero to wear braces. Endearing. So are the children who are his friends. The special effects are better than in most recent films: when we first see Zokkomon towering high up in the sky,it’s quite a sight. But the film gets weighed under its clichés: the Magic Uncle (Kher again,he’s in a double role) who trains Kunal in being a superhero with his collection of futuristic tools,is too dour; the kind girl (Fadnis),who rescues Kunal after he’s abandoned in the city,is too dull.

And when will we have a children’s film that steers clear of the sort of heavy vocabulary which uses such words as ‘paakhandi’ and ‘andhvishwaas’? Too bad Zokkomon doesn’t make full use of its potential.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com