No chills, no thrills

Children are a cheated audience in our country. Unlike the West, which invests a lot of time, attention and money in children's films, the youngest section of the audience in India is expected to make do with tame fare like Hatimtai, Halo or Makdee. Chhota Chetan, a 3-D delight, was one of the rare children's films actually appreciated by its target audience. As a result, one cannot really blame children if they insist on seeing Hollywood films like Shrek or Harry Potter instead of Chhota Jadugar or, for that matter, Jajantaram Mamantaram, which released this week.

Which is a real shame, considering that India is such a rich storehouse of folk tales ranging from mythological stories to the Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, the Jataka Tales, and more. There is no dearth of ideas, but the acumen to implement them seems to be in short supply.

Let's look at Jajantaram Mamantaram. On the surface, the film has all the ingredients necessary for an engaging children's film -- giants, midgets, evil magicians, spells, action and adventure. Dig a little deeper and all you get is disappointment. Perhaps a Rs 10 crore (approximately US $2.13 million) budget is not good enough to create believable animation.

A cross between the fable of Bakasura and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Jajantaram Mamantaram opens with four adolescent boys rushing in a rainy night to an old, weird-looking man. He speaks an alien lingo. The boys ask him about Aditya and are given a vague reply. Who are these boys? Who is the weirdo? You'll never know.

Cut to Aditya (Jaaved Jaaferi) in a Perfect Storm-like situation. He manages to swim to the shore of an unknown land, Shundi, whose ant-sized inhabitants wear jute tablemats for caps. Fearing the 'giant' Aditya, army chief Chattan Singh (Gulshan Grover) orders his men to tie the intruder.

When Aditya wakes up, he is as astounded as the residents of Shundi to discover himself in this enchanted land. He eventually wins their trust by saving their lives from the gigantic cannibal, Jhamunda (Joy Fernandes).

Jhamunda is actually a slave of the evil Chattan Singh, who wants to marry Princess Amori and become the ruler of Shundi.

Aditya befriends a soldier, Jeran (Manav Kaul), who loves Amori. Together, Aditya, Jeran and the enthusiastic denizens of Shundi battle to finish off Chattan Singh and Jhamunda.

The makers of Jajantaram Mamantaram conveniently assume the average viewer -- in this case, a child -- is dumb. This explains why they do not feel the need to establish Aditya's identity or his whereabouts.

Jaaferi treats his role like a one-man television show. He speaks in Mumbaiyya lingo, throws in a couple of funny one-liners here and there, rolls his eyeballs, and grimaces at every given opportunity. On Channel [V], the television music channel, his trademark antics are great; 120 minutes of non-stop gimmickry on the big screen, however, can really wear the funny bone.

Gulshan Grover's get-up is reminiscent of Kader Khan's Mantrik in Paatal Bhairavi (Jeetendra, Jaya Prada). Grover goes through his clichéd scowling-sneering routine with consummate ease. The 'bad man' of Hindi films even sings and does a taandav to the beat of music directors Three Brothers and a Violin. The film stretches with the inclusion of too many songs and inane lyrics like Rumbum, rumbabum.

Jajantaram Mamantaram's biggest drawback is its special effects. With its amateur computer graphics and superimposed images, the film looks like the television serial Shaktimaan. The make-believe moon and stars in a song sequence with Jhamunda, or a group of artificial-looking yellow fishes dashing against Aditya's face, or Dipannita Sharma doing a mermaid number midair look clumsy and downmarket.

In a nutshell, the film neither has the satire of Gulliver's Travels nor the imagination of Bakasura.