Not based on the novel by Ian Fleming.

Bollywood cartoons frequently have religious themes. Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang (2008) is an exception; rather than telling the story of the early life and adventures of, say, Hanuman, the movie focuses on the secret life and politics of ants. It sounds like the American animated features Antz and A Bug’s Life, but surprisingly, the plot isn’t lifted from either one.

The Red and Black ant kingdoms live in relative peace on either side of a small river. Laal Budda, an elderly red ant, likes to spend his lazy afternoons watching Kalibou, a nubile young handmaiden of the black queen, fetch water from the river. A few of the young red ants play a prank on Laal Budda, literally dropping him onto Kalibou and breaking her pot. Kalibou complains to her queen, who pressures her weak-willed husband to call for Laal Budda’s head.

The red king, a boisterous, bad tempered warrior ant and part time Amrish Puri impersonator, objects to his citizens being summarily executed, and so it is war! Urged on by the opportunistic termite Ghunn, the two kingdoms engage in an arms race of sorts; the black ants employ a frog to guard their front gate, so the red ants use a magic potion to grow wings, so the black ants make a deal with the songbirds, and so on.

Meanwhile. Lohit, the prince of the red ants, and Krishna, princess of the black ants, meet and (naturally) fall in love. After trying and failing to convince their respective fathers of the futility of war, they decide to run away together, and disappear from the movie entirely.

Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang is far from perfect. The characters are lightly sketched stereotypes at best, and nobody has enough screentime to be properly developed. The young lovers are particularly bland, and while they seem like obious protagonists, in the end it’s the wise old spider, who looks like Amitabh Bachchan and previously appeared for all of thirty seconds, who stops the war, clears up all misunderstandings, and teaches the kings that they should really investigate for themselves rather than start wars based on rumor and faulty intelligence. And the tribal flamenco grasshopper interlude doesn’t make any sense at all.

Despita all of that, though, Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang was better than I expected. The animation isn’t close to Disney standards, but holds up well with the shows I used to watch on Saturday mornings as a child. The music ranges from okay to actively good. In the end it’s a simple story told in a straightforward fashion, without a trace of irony. There is still room in children’s entertainment for that.