Mighty Raju Rio Calling

My expectations from Indian animation as on date are next to nothing.  I had a massive backlog from the previous weeks and decided to invest my time on Tuesday, catching up with everything that I had missed.  My day began with this one.  A children’s 2D animation movie called Mighty Raju Rio Calling.

I did not expect anything but basic movie making hygiene.  You know, stuff like a decent story, some dialogue that would address kids but not come across as cheesy, a script that had been reasonably well thought out so as to not leave any loop holes.  I had no expectation from the animation department.

But sadly, MRRC turned out to be exactly what I had hoped it would not be.  One of the cheesiest dialogues that I have ever heard in my life is, “Lucas se loge panga toh life mein ho jaayega danga”.  WOW!!! Is this what our children’s film makers want our kids to take back with them after a movie?

If that doesn’t test your patience, then there is an exceptionally irritating character called Don Pedro.  For reasons best known to the makers, Don is pronounced Dhon.  Have I missed something about pronunciation in that part of the world over all these years? Dhon’s favourite dialogue would be, “Maine poem kiya”!!! At least get the grammar right people!!!! There are kids watching this movie!!!

MRRC is about the fictional, bald, boy super hero who goes by the name of Raju Swami when he is not saving lives.  He lives in a city called Arya Nagar that has a sea face totally inspired by Queen’s Necklace Mumbai.  His best friends are his pint sized Doberman Moby and a robot created by his scientist father.

Apparently the Brazilian government is incompetent and cannot find a solution for a slew of weird events that are happening with electronic items in public places.  You see software and technology has never been Brazil’s forte.  Maybe it is time that they start playing lesser football and focus more on domestic issues.

The government is also daft enough to not join the dots about these weird incidents occurring around the time a few million disappears from a bank branch that is close by.  In fact, conmen are so cool in Brazil that their electronic equipment function seamlessly when everything in a few square miles is temporary reduced to non-recyclable junk.

As such, the incompetent Brazilian government calls our scientist Swamy to solve its problems.  Of course since the problem may take forever to solve, our scientist has to move lock stock and 2 smoking barrels to Rio!!! Magically, everyone in Rio also speaks in Hindi because of some loose reason of a random exchange programme.

The only thing that the makers did right with the movie was to close out all in-film placements.  From Sahara Q Shop to Jungle Magic perfume for kids or even a phenomenally ill-placed spot for OLX, the makers have squeezed every bit out of sponsors.  Sadly, sponsors don’t look at scripts and it may land up being detrimental instead.

In all, MRRC is a kiddie movie that has been made badly.  I would not take my children to a show where their learnings would be limited to a few brand names and nothing else.  Very avoidable.  3 on 10.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ypu9maJqQ