Krrish? More like krrash!

Cheesy dialogues, humdrum action and nothing special about the effects make Krrish 3 a terrible movie

Fusion is the future," thunders Kaal (Vivek Oberoi), a comically evil-looking baddie of Rakesh Roshan's Krrish 3. This line is one of the many absurdities that Oberoi and rest of the cast hurl at you during Krrish3.

I didn't see the earlier films, so I had zero expectations from this Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra movie. How bad can a superhero movie be, I wondered. Well, after 152 minutes, the answer is: it can be terrible. Thanks to Amitabh Bachchan's narrative, in five minutes I came to know what happened in the first two movies of this "franchise". However, what I didn't understand is why this film is called Krrish 3, as there was no Krrish 2.

Anyway, moving along, Krrish (Roshan), like any other superhero, flies across cities to save planes from crashlanding, saves children hanging from electric wires and distributes weird-looking friendship bands with his mark. He lives with his pretty wife, played by Priyanka Chopra, and a scientist father, played also by Hrithik. As if one Hrithik wasn't enough, here we have to endure three: Senior Hrithik, Common Man Hrithik and Superhero Hrithik. All three co-exist quite happily till Kaal enters their lives with a deadly virus, called, what else but "Virus".

Kaal lives atop snow-capped mountains and has this multi-million dollar research laboratory, where he creates deadly viruses and then prepares antidotes for them. Bad joke alert: if Kaal was bald, he would have been called Shakaal! Shakaal? Shaan? There are a lot of similarities between Kulbhushan Kharbanda in Ramesh Sippy's forgettable Shaan and Oberoi.

Kaal is supposed to be this scientific genius who wants to rule the world with his cronies. His cronies? Well, believe it or not, since fusion is the future, he creates a cross between man and animal. And what does he call them? "Maanvar". Only a true genius could have come up with that name. Bravo!

So these "maanvars" - Kharbanda, by the way, had sharks in Shaan - follow Kaal's orders and are ready to kill at the drop of a hat. One of these "maanvars" is Kaaya (Kangana Ranaut), a chameleon, who can take any form she wants. Ranaut dresses like catwoman, and to be fair to her, looks the part and is perhaps the most convincing character in Krrish 3.

Now superhero movies are supposed to be full of visual effects, enthralling action scenes but in Krrish 3, there are none. Maybe there's one fight scene between Krrish and Kaal which is just about decent but when you look at the "costume" Kaal is wearing, you won't even appreciate that. Kaal's costume looks like it has been made by a scrap dealer who was shown a photograph of Robocop. Oberoi looks hilariously bad and uncomfortable in the shredded, hand-me-down Robocop outfit.

Hrithik is arguably a hard working actor, but in Krrish 3 he is a big disappointment. Chopra doesn't have much to do apart from annoyingly call Hrithik "husband".

Krrish 3 is devoid of all creativity - it's a mix of Hollywood superheroes -, is tedious and doesn't even have great special effects. Shashi Kapoor's terrible 1990s superhero film Ajooba had more creativity. The lines are cheesy to the extreme. Sample these: "Jahan crisis hai, wahaan Krrish hai"; a kid telling Oberoi on seeing Krrish, "kyon Kaal, phat gayi". Words like "telekinesis", "mutation" are thrown around to show what a serious problem Krrish has to solve.

Unless you're a kid who would go gaga over the "special effects", there is nothing to like in Krrish 3. I hope Rakesh Roshan doesn't extend this franchisee now, but the last scene of the film dreadfully hints that the audience, unfortunately, haven't seen the last of Krrish.