Chandra the Vampire Slayer

 

(

 

As the title implies Lokah Chapter One: Chandra (2025) is the start of yet another cinematic universe, combining superhero trappings with Malayalam folklore and myth.  That means that there are mid- and post-credit scenes to set up future entries in the series, as well as an extended cameo form the protagonist of the next planned movie, but that's the future, and I am just looking at the movie in front of me.

 The movie features a Bond-style cold open, with Chandra (Kalyani Priyadarshan) stealing an unknown but important item and then fighting an assassin working for an organization called Ishtar.  (This is the last time that Ishtar will be mentioned in this movie.)   Chandra wins, and after an animated credit sequence showing her adventuring through various places and time periods, she arrives in an unnamed Indian city which looks an awful lot like Bengalaru, where her contact Prakash (Nishanth Sagar) instructs here to lie low and rest for a while.  And Chandra does exactly that.  She loves in a small apartment, works nights as a waitress, and spends her spare time reading a book called "They Live Among Us," a supposedly comprehensive look at the supernatural world.

And then there are the neighbors.  Sunny (Naslen) lives across the street.  He's unemployed and spends his time hanging out with his friends Venu (Chandu Salim Kumar) and Naijil (Arun Kurian).  The trio seem to live in an entirely different genre than Chandra; "three layabout guys have misadventures" is practicially iots own subgenre in Indian cinema.  Sunny catches a glimpse of Chandra and is immediately smitten, but he doesn't get a chance to talk to her until they wind up in the same autorickshaw.  Sunny finally manages to start a conversation, and winds up inviting Chandra to Naijil's birthday party.

While Chandra is trying her best to lay low, she can't stand by while well-connected thug Sundari (Viahnu Priya Thoppil) threatens one of her coworkers with acid.  She smashes the acid flask in his hand and quickly knocks him unconscious.  Unfortunately, Sundari is the younger brother of Gajendran (Shivajith), a local politician who also runs the city's organ trafficking ring.  Gajendran hands the case over to Nachiyappa (sandy), a corrupt and deeply misogynistic police officer.  

The birthday party goes well (apart from a visit by Nachiyappa, looking for illegal drugs), and Sunny strikes up an odd friendship with Chandra.  There is something strange about her, though - she only goes out at night, Sunny's cat is terrified of her, and the sight of blood makes her visibly uncomfortable.  Also she doesn't seem to eat and she never drinks . . . wine.  After Chandra is ambushed by Sundari and a group of organ traffickers, Sunny tries to rush to the rescue, only to watch in horror as she grows fangs and bites throats, then asks him to help dispose of the bodies.  

 Chandra finally admits the truth - she's a yaksha, which for the purposes of this movie means she's a big ol' vampire.  Actually she's a specific yaksha, Kalliyankattu Neeli,  whom some fear as a monster and others worship as a goddess.  Sunny is sworn to secrecy, and this might be sounding a bit like Thamma.  The tone is pretty different, though - Thamma is a part of the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe, and it shows.  Chandra is funny at times, but the overall tone is darker.  Chandra defends the oppressed, but she's still dangerous, and Sunny knows that.

And things get worse.  Nachiyappa realizes that Chandra is responsible for Sundari's death.  There's fight, Nachiyappa is bitten, Sunny is shot, and everybody  runs away.  Sunny and Chandra are labelled as terrorists, the police get closer and closer, and Chandra's old friend Michael (Tovino Thomas), a Chathan (though the subtitles call him a goblin) has to temporarily save the day with his mastery of illusions before running off to star in the next movie.  And Nachiyappa is starting to change . . .

 There is a lot going on in Chandra; it feels less like a movie than an entire season of a supernatural action series crammed into two and a half hours.  The pacing isn't the only thing that's uneven; Michael's scenes represent a noticeable shift in tone, which goes away at the same time he does.  On the other hand, there's a lot to like here.  Vampires/yakshas as a metaphor for the underprivileged fighting back is interesting, and Kalyani Priyadarshan is a strong lead.  The film looks great - the city has a fantastic neon noir style, and the action scenes are frequent and elaborate, but it's still easy to see what is going on.  And I like how different this is from the Maddock movies - there's room in the cinema for different takes on Gothic heroism.

Believe it or not, I'm walking on air.

 

 A Flying Jatt (2016) is a classic superhero story, with colorful costumes, a secret identity, and a character arc that starts with clumsy flying and ends with a kung fu fight in space.  That doesn't mean it's a good movie, but it does mean that there's always something going on.

 Rakesh Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon) is rich, powerful, brilliant and arrogant; he's basically Single Dad Lex Luthor, dividing his time between his toxic chemical business (I'm not sure what he's supposed to be manufacturing, but he produces an awful lot of toxic waste) and his precocious young daughter (Mahi Milan.)  Malhotra wants to build a bridge across a lake to allow his factory in Punjab to dump toxic waste more efficiently, but the locals won't sell their land, because the project requires cutting down a sacred tree.

Fortunately the tree is defended . . . by feisty hard-drinking widow Mrs. Dhillon (Amrita Singh), who owns the land the tree is located on.  Mrs. Dhillon has two sons - Rohit (Gaurav Pandey), who is not the designated protagonist, and Aman (Tiger Shroff), who is.  Aman is a study in contradictions; he's a skilled martial artist who teaches karate at the local school, but the kids don't respect him and he's being bullied by Goldy (Sushant Pujari), the violin teacher.  He's in love with his colleague Kirti (Jacqueline Fernandez) but can't bring himself to tell her how he feels.  And he's a devout Sikh, but he's too embarrassed to live as a Sardar, and has disappointed his mother by cutting his hair and refusing to wear a turban.

Malhotra tries buying off Mrs. Dhillon, then tries threatening Aman.  Neither tactic gets him what he wants, so he puts out a hit on the tree, hiring scary mercenary Raka (Nathan Jones) to chop down the tree late at night during a dramatic thunderstorm.  Aman happens to be there at the tree, praying for his mother's safety, and they fight.  Raka gains the upper hand but lightning strikes just as he's about to kill the young man; Raka flies into a convenient vat of toxic waste and is definitely dead and not going to come back with pollution-based superpowers, while Aman is thrown into the tree.

And in the morning Aman wakes up from a deep sleep, completely unharmed.  After a confrontation with more of Malhotra's goons it becomes clear that he now has superpowers, so Mrs. Dhillon rents a bunch of superhero DVDs for research and they experiment to discover just what Aman's powers are.  It's a diverse powerset - Aman can fly (though he's still afraid of heights), he's strong and fast and heals almost instantly, he can temporarily absorb the qualities of physical media, allowing him to play the violin and dance like Michael Jackson and/or Sunny Leone.  Mrs. Dhillon makes Aman a costume, and he takes the name "Flying Jatt," which was his late father's nickname back in the Shaolin temple.

And then the movie settles into Greatest American Hero-style shenanigans for a while, as Aman learns to be a hero while fighting crime and saving people from disasters throughout Punjab while protecting his secret identity.  He also finds himself in a love triangle with himself, as Kriti falls head over heels in love with the new superhero while assuring Aman that he's still her best friend.  

The good times don't last, though.  In a completely unexpected development, Raka emerges from the toxic waste with pollution-based superpowers.  Aman beats him a few times but Raka feeds off pollution, and he keeps getting stronger.  Soon he has the upper hand, seriously injuring Aman and boasting that he cannot be defeated anywhere on Earth, because pollution is everywhere.

A Flying Jatt is juggling two main themes.  Aman's personal journey as he grows into a hero and learns to embrace his culture is compelling; in context the line "It's twelve o'clock" hits hard.  Punjab as a setting also adds a bit of interest - we do get glimpses of how a superhero operates in a more rural context rather than spending all their time in a big city.

On the other hand, the environmental message is handled with all the subtlety of an episode of Captain Planet.  The main takeaway is that pollution is bad, and we should stop it somehow.  And then there's Raka.  He's mean, he likes hurting people, and he wants more pollution so he can become more powerful, and that's pretty much it.  He's the final boss, but he's not a compelling antagonist.

This movie is reasonably entertaining nonsense, but there are frustrating hints that it could have been more. 

Chhota Bheem and the Inevitable Remake

 It seems like every other day a new Bollywood cinematic universe begins, but the Spy Universe, the Cop Universe, and the Maddock Supernatural Universe can't begin compete with the sheer volume of material released  for the Chhota Bheem franchise. Bheem and his pals have been all around the world, fighting pirate Vikings, meeting aliens, gaining super powers, and spawning at least five spin-offs.  (It's hard to keep up.)  And now, in Chhota Bheem and the Curse of Damyaan (2024), Bheem and his friends cross over into a whole new world: live action.

In the deep desert outside the tiny kingdom of Dholakpur, something is stirring. A celestial convergence, combined with a weird green meteorite thing, has weakened the seal imprisoning the great serpent mage Damyaan (Sumikt Keshri), and he has dispatched his shapechanging servants Skandhi (Makarand Deshpande) and Takshika (Navneet Kaur Dhillon) to find a pure hearted warrior of great power to break the last seal, so that Damvaan can rise and use his ultimate power to turn all of the humans in the world into snakes.  This is normally the sort of problem that you get Conan to handle,or at least Ator, the Fighting Eagle, but Dholakpur doesn't need them, because it has Bheem (Yagya Bhasin.)

Bheem is a kid, but he's not an ordinary kid.  He's really strong (especially after he's eaten laddoos), consistently brave, reliably heroic, and just generally nice.  He's also loyal  and humble, happy to solve everyone's problems and protect the reign of the good king Indraverma (Sanjay Bishnoi.)  He doesn't work alone,though - he's usually accompanied by Chutki (Aashriya Mishra),  his sassy platonic gal pal; Raju (Advik Jaiswal), his bald sidekick; Kalia (Kabir Sajid), a somewhat reformed bully who would be the strongest kid around if not for Bheem; Kalia's twin sidekicks Bholu and Dholu (Divyam Dawar and Daivik Dawar); and Jaggu (Aryan Khan) the blue CGI monkey. They are also friends with Indraverma's daughter Indumati (Swarna Pandey) but she doesn't have much to do in this one.

While Bheem's friends are busy preparing for his upcoming birthday, Skandhi and Takshika are hard at work being evil.  They ambush a friendly merchant bringing supplies into town, take his place, arrange a painfully transparent scene in which Skandhi apparently saves Indraverma from a deadly snake, and just to be on the safe side they sneak out at night and burn the village's crops using their snake magic.  This is bad news for the kingdom,which means that Indraverma is desperate enough to listen when they suggest an expedition to find Sonapur, the lost City of Gold, buried deep within the desert sands.  Skandhi predicts that the king is the fabled mighty and pure hearted warrior who can unlock the lost city, and off they go into the desert.

Naturally, the kids come along on this dangerous expedition. Bheem is deeply suspicious of these strangers, but all of the adults are happy to ignore every warning sign, including the wild-eyed sage (Chandrashekhar Dutta) ranting about the danger of releasing Damyaan.  They find the seal, and Indraverma tries his luck, but he's into the prophesied warrior.  Neither is Kalia, so Skandhi suggests that Bheem try.  Bheem doesn't want to, but he obeys his king, and the seal is opened. This does not reveal Sonapur, it releases Damyaan, because that was the evil plan all along. 

Bheem and his pals put up a good fight, but Damyaan is just too powerful, and they are quickly defeated.  Rather than taking the opportunity to turn them into snakes, Damyaan imprisons them all and goes about his evil,business. Fortunately, the sage they met in the desert has also been imprisoned, and he is able to provide them with valuable exposition about the last days of Sonapur and how the ancient Guru Shambhu (Anupam Kher) sacrificed his life to seal the immortal serpent mage away. They quickly hatch a plan: Bheem and his friends will travel back in time to defeat Damyaan before he can become immortal, which will prevent him from escaping and nobody will be turned into a snake.  And Indraverma can stay in the present and think about what he's done.

Sonapur in the past is a world of amazing magic,with flying vehicles and street vendors conjuring gold vases out of mid-air, but it has also been nearly conquered by Damyaan and his minions, so Bheem and the gang must move quietly in order to make contact with the resistance and find Shambhu.  And that plan falls apart immediately as soon as Bheem sees someone in trouble.

This is a kids movie, and it's clearly playing to its target audience. However, the scope of the story is a lot different than what you usually see in Paw Patrol; Bheem and his pals are kids TV archetypes, but they're embroiled in a high fantasy plot with a Sword and Sorcery villain and a time travel twist,and all of the elements blend surprisingly well.  It's a decent rollicking fantasy epic, but for kids.

Though the time travel rules are total nonsense.  Once the kids arrive in the past, everything proceeds on the same schedule as the present,including the countdown to Bheem's birthday, and they have a deadline based on the future which determines how long they have in the past.  The past is a different country rather than a different time, though defeating Damyaan still works.

It's the Village of People Who Don't Ask Follow Up Questions!

Superheroes are associated with cities; Superman protects Metropolis, Batman lurks in Gotham, and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends hang out in New York City.  In India, though, things are different.  Sure, Krrish lives in Mumbai, but many of India's cinematic superheroes are rural, protecting India's wide open spaces.  And in Veeran (2023), the hero finds plenty of danger and adventure while confined to a single village.

When he was fifteen years old, Kumaran (Hiphop Tamizha Adhi) was struck by lightning and fell into a coma, so he was sent to Singapore to recover.  Fourteen years later, he returns to his native village of Veeranor and reunites with his childhood friends Sakkarai (Sassi Selvaraj) and Selvi (Athira Raj), along with his own skeptical father (Jeeva Ravi.)  Sakkarai assists his grandfather, who is both the village barber and the priest who maintains the shrine of local deity Veeran, though most of the villagers are completely indifferent.  Selvi, meanwhile, is about to enter an arranged marriage with an older man who doubles as comic relief (Muruganandum), though her family are fine with her hanging out with Kumaran as long as she's home to perform the necessary rituals.

The village is part of an experimental project by the JACL Corporation to produce power by firing lasers through a glass tube, but the planned route runs right through Veeran's shrine, and the priest absolutely refuses to let it be torn down. It's a technology that was designed to be used in rural areas, because if the tube loses containment it could lead to an explosion that wipes out all life along the entire line.  That's why Kumaran is here; he's been having visions of the village wiped out in a blue mushroom cloud.

It's not just the visions, though.  The lightning strike gave Kumaran a suite of low key super powers.  He can throw lightning bolts that are only powerful enough to knock people around rather than stop their hearts, control minds for ninety seconds at a time (though overuse of this ability hurts him and can lead to unconsciousness), and also has the uncanny power to befriend horses.  For reasons.  It's probably an extension of the mind control.

Thanks to his visions, Kumaran knows that JACL is up to something evil, so his plan is to disguise himself as the god Veeran in order to thwart them.  JACL doesn't appreciate the interference, and corporate bully Dhruv (R. Badree) to deal with him, later followed by Dhruv's brother Sarath (Vinay Rai), an evil scientist with a specialized poison that makes people explode within two minutes.  

Kumaran-as-Veeran is a superhero, but he's no Superman.  he's got a loosely thematic suite of abilities with some tight limits; the lightning can knock people around but isn't going to end the fight immediately, his mind control doesn't last long and can hurt him, he needs to be able to snap use any of his powers, and he has to wear a copper bracelet given to him by Sakkarai's grandfather or he'll lose control of his powers.  And all of those limitations factor into the plot.  The scope of Veeran is smaller than a lot of superhero movies.

But while the scope is smaller, the stakes are still high.  Sure, Veeran is fighting to protect one village, but the village is full of people, and they matter.  The restricted setting means that we get to meet most of them and see that they matter.  The plot doesn't have to involve collapsing multiverses to be meaningful.

Veeran is not a perfect superhero movie; I don't think we ever find out exactly what the evil plot is, and there's a lot of comic relief here that just doesn't translate well.  Still, the leads are engaging, the villains are definitely villainous, and the hero has to struggle to save the day, with a lot of help from his horse.  It's refreshingly grounded without trying to be gritty.

(An evil power company called JACL and run by a merciless scientist?  That's got to be a stealth Shaktimaan reference, right?  It's not just me?)

Take a look. It's in a book.

 Chashme Bahaddar (2006) is not exactly a superhero movie.  It's certainly not a big budget Bollywood special effects extravaganza, it's a goody low budget Marathi comedy, and the biggest name in the cast is probably Johny Lever.  Still, it's a movie with a fantastic premise (in more ways than one) and it turns out you can get a lot of ridiculous out of a limited budget.

Rajaram Dhappne (Sanjay Narvekar) is an assistant librarian at a small Mumbai library.  That may sound glamorous, but he's actually kind of a nebbish, more interested in reading books than in engaging with the world around him.  His wife Neelima (Deepali Saiyyed) and son don't really respect him, his boss (Johny Lever) is constantly berating him, and the neighbors treat him as something of a joke.  Raja is the kind of man that winds up getting beaten on the street by an angry mob because they assumed that he was harassing his own wife.

It gets worse, though.  Raja's neighborhood has been targeted by Dholakia (Shrirang Godbhole), a corrupt developer who plans to level the area and build a fancy tower in its place.  (Well, that's what the subtitles say; I'm not sure if he's actually planning to build an apartment block or a fancy luxury hotel.)  Dholakia has recruited gangster Dolya (Deepak Shirke) and his incompetent but violent gang to clear the neighborhood.  

The only thing standing in Dolya's way is a complaint filed at the police department and signed by Raja.  Or signed by someone claiming to be Raja - Raja certainly didn't file any police report.  Dolya gives orders to kidnap Raja and "persuade" him to drop the report, so Raja tries to be careful, but all the hiding under the bed he's doing isn't impressing his family.

And then help comes in a box, inherited from Raja's deceased grandfather.  The box contains a statue of the grandfather, a fancy pair of glasses, and a friendly ghost, who explains how the glasses work.  Anyone wearing the glasses and reading the book will be possessed by the spirit of the main character, because apparently fictional characters explicitly have spirits in this universe, but that's not important right now.  There are limits, the most serious one being that the reader will be that character while the possession lasts, knowing only what the character knows and pursuing the character's agenda.  The possession lasts until the character notices two crossed lines, whether that be an actual cross, crossed arms, or the straps on a blouse.

Having been granted this amazing power, Raja sort of mucks about for a bit.  He becomes Arjun and interrupts a wedding of a woman who happens to be named Draupadi and is in the process of carrying away the enthusiastic bride when he reverts to Raja.  As Father De Silva, he convinces the men of the neighborhood to give up drinking and accidentally shakes down the local bar owner (Rajpal Yadav), then he transforms into a drunkard and takes them all out to the same bar.  

Along the way Raja manages to accidentally win the respect of his neighbors and especially his family, while putting the fear of God (or rather Arjun) into the gang members.  Which means that when the situation turns serious, everyone looks to Raja to save them.  The gangsters attack right after Holi, because this movie is deliberately riffing on Sholay at this point, and Raja is ready, with a fairly ridiculous plan that fails almost immediately, leaving Raja to face the villains as himself.

Chashme Bahaddar is definitely playing to its budget.  The special effects are . . . unambitious, the incidental music is largely lifted from Western movies (notably Jurassic Park), and the comedy is broad, because the filmmakers could not afford subtlety.  And that's fine.  This is a lightweight silly comedy, but it's a fun lightweight silly comedy.

If the movie has an actual flaw, it's the pacing.  Raja does a lot of meandering before the plot actually picks up; the Father De Silva sequence in particular goes on for a bit too long, and he subsequent "funny drunk" sequence that follows could be dropped entirely.  It's just an excuse for an item number, and there are other ways to justify pretty ladies dancing.  

 

Despite the sequel hunting ending, there's not going to be a Chashme Bahaddar Cinematic Universe-it's an insubstantial bit of fluff, and no better than it ought to be.  But it is as good as it ought to be.

Shiva Universe

Brahmastra Part One: Shiva (2022) is a movie with a lot of jobs to do; it's a superhero origin story and the first film in a planned trilogy and lay the foundation for a new cinematic universe.  But there's a reason why most cinematic universes never really get going.  You can't spend your entire movie setting up future projects; the movie the audience is watching now has to be about something.  Fortunately, Brahmastra is about something.

But before the movie can really get started, it has another job to do: enable celebrity cameos.  Shahrukh Khan plays scientist Mohan Bhargav, and somehow I didn't already know that, so I was the ideal audience for the reveal. 

Mohan is alone in his Delhi apartment studying a mystical artifact when his home is invaded by thugs Zor (Saurav Gurjar) and Raflaar (Rouhallah Gazi.)  Fortunately for Mohan, he has an ancient artifact of his own, the Vanarastra, an anklet which gives him the proportionate sass of a monkey, along with heightened agility and jumping powers.  Mohan casually humiliates his attackers Spidey-style until their boss shows up; Junoon (Mouni Roy) has an artifact of her own, and she uses it to overpower Mohan.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, plucky DJ Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) is living his best life.  He keeps catching glimpses of Isha (Alia Bhatt), and he falls for her - plummets for her, really.  He manages to make contact by climbing up the outside of an elevator, and after a lot of banter invites her to a party at his place, and it's actually cute and charming rather than creepy because they're both being really open and honest about their intentions.

The party turns out to be a birthday party for a little girl at the orphanage Shiva cares for, and Shiva reveals a bit of his backstory and motivation: he was orphaned as a baby, left with only a conch shell to remind him of his mother, and he cares for other orphans and looks for the light in every situation.  The romantic mood is spoiled somewhat when Shiva runs away after being suddenly overwhelmed by visions of Mohan being murdered in Delhi, though.  When he returns home, Isha is gone, and he starts to lament the fact that he has no way to find her again but the kids cut him off and explain that Isha is their Facebook friend now.

 Shiva tracks Isha down at her wealthy grandfather's estate, but along the way he catches a news report about Mohan's "suicide," and realizes that his visions are real.  Then he realizes that the next target he saw in the visions, artist Anish Shetty (Nagarjuna Akkineni) is in terrible danger.  So he rushes off to Varanasi and Isha insists on coming along and they . . . spend some time enjoying a romantic tour of the city.

Then Shiva lets slip that he is immune to fire and has a sort of vague control over it sometimes, and they remember the superhero plot and go looking for Anish. Before they find him, though, Shiva sees Junoon and the boys and they realize they have very little time, especially since Raflaar is wearing the Vanarastra.  Shiva and Isha manage to find Anish first, and Anish helps them escape with his ancient artifact, the Nandiastra, which gives him the power of a thousand bulls.  

The trio flee the city, headed for the mountain ashram maintained by Anish's guru Raghu (Amitabh Bachchan), but Junoon and her crew are following in a truck.  Anish sacrifices himself to send Junoon and Zor over the edge of a cliff, but Raflaar still has his heightened leaping powers, and tracks Shiva and Isha to the gates of the ashram.  Then he makes the mistake of threatening Isha, and Shiva unleashes a torrent of flames, burning him to ash.

Then Amitabh Bachchan appears and delivers exposition.  Long ago a group of sages used the celestial energy of Brahm Shakti to produce astras, talismans which function as weapons of incredible power, representing a number of animals and forces.  At the same time, they accidentally created the Brahmastra, mightiest of the astras, a weapon so powerful that it could destroy the world if activated.  The sages became a secret society known as the Brahmansh, charged with guarding the astras, and Mohan and Anish were both members of the society and guarded a third of the now broken Brahmastra,  And Shiva is himself an astra, the Agnyastra, able to control fire without the need for any talisman.  

There's more exposition available, but Raghu won't deliver it unless Shiva agrees to stay at the ashram (which doubles as a school for young Brahmansh to learn to use their powers, like a Himalayan X-Mansion.)  Nandini is sent away, which is a shame because Shiva's power springs from love.  And of course Junoon and Zor survived the fall, and they're building a dark army to attack the ashram.

Most of the elements of Brahmastra are things that I have seen before; there's a hidden school for budding superheroes like in the X-Men, a scavenger hunt for mystical talismans like in Jackie Chan Adventures, and a fighting style that mixes martial arts and elemental power like in Avatar.  And of course the secret society of Indian monks empowering a champion to protect the world is straight out of Shaktimaan. The real bad guy even has a secret origin that's almost identical to that of Tamraj Kilvish.   Like Shaktimaan, Brahmastra is really taking its inspiration from Hindu devotional films, but with a much higher budget.  It's executed well.  It's a tight superhero origin story with consistent rules for the superpowers.

Still, originality and execution are nice, but a movie should still be about something, and Brahmastra is about love.  Shiva is driven by love.  He's powered by love.  He saves the world through the force of his love, not in some hackneyed metaphorical sense, but literally loving the world enough to save it.  And while the movie gets dark at times (this is an Indian superhero movie, so it is not afraid to threaten children) there's a sense of optimism and hope throughout.  It's one of the most relentlessly positive superhero stories I've seen in ages.  

And then the movie ends with a plug for the sequel which couldn't be any more obvious without Nick Fury showing up.  But that is a story for another time.  Brahmastra is surprisingly self contained, despite being Part One.

Whaaaat?

 This is apparently real.  There's a long way to go between "announcement" and "actual movie that I can watch", but I'm going to be excited for a while anyway.

No, really. It was in the preface to "Anna Karenina and the Terror of the Shooting Tsar."

 Leo Tolstoy once said that all superhero origins are alike, but every villain falls in his own way.  However, Tolstoy knows nothing about superheroes.  It's true that many superhero origin stories hit the same beats, but that's because they work.  A good story will take those familiar beats and make something that feels new, as Minnal Murali (2021) does.

Jaison (Tovino Thomas) seems like an unlikely candidate for superherodom.  He's a tailor in Kurukkanmoola, a village in small town Kerala, but he dreams of moving to the United States in order to earn enough money to win the hand of Bincy (Sneha Babu), daughter of the village's corrupt police Sub-Inspector Sajan (Baiju).  Bincy isn't willing to wait around, though, and becomes engaged to successful doofus Aneesh (Jude Anthany Joseph).  Jaison goes to her house to confront her while drunk and dressed as Santa Claus, and he's struck by lightning before Sajan can shoot him.

Meanwhile, tea shop employee Shibu (Guru Somasundaram) has spent most of his life pining after his childhood crush Usha (Shelley Kishore).  he's ecstatic when he learns that her marriage has collapsed and she and her young daughter are moving in with her brother Dasan (Harisree Asokan).  On a rainy Christmas Eve he paddles a boat out to catch a glimpse of Usha, and he's struck by lightning.

After a rough night, both men are fine.  Better than fine, really, because this is a superhero origin story.  Jaison learns that he's much faster and stronger, with superhuman hearing and perfect aim.  His nephew Josemon (Vasisht Umesh) explains the concept of superheroes to him, and they experiment with his powers.  Meanwhile he starts to get over Bincy, especially as he spends more time with "Bruce Lee" Biji (Femina George) a multiclassed travel agent/karate instructor who happens to be Aneesh's ex-girlfriend.

Shibu, meanwhile, gleefully experiments with his new telekinetic powers, and pointedly does not get over Usha.  He's as devoted as ever, despite her complete lack of interest, and uses his new abilities to terrify his boss after the man makes a crude pass at her.  

(Usha is an interesting character, because as written, she has very little agency, but that's the point; she has very little agency due to her situation.  She just wants to take care of her sick daughter, but she's practically besieged by unwanted suitors, all varying degrees of creepy, and she does not have any way to get them to leave her alone.  Of course, when Usha finally does get the chance to make a choice, it is a catastrophically bad one.)

When Jaison discovers that his adoptive father Varkey (P. Balachandran) was beaten by Sajan, he dons a disguise and crashes a school function in order to beat up basically the entire police force.  He signs his work, writing the name "Minnal Murali" on the wall before he vanishes.  On the same night, Shibu dons a much creepier disguise and robs the bank in order to pay for an operation for Usha's daughter.  The police and press believe that the bank robbery was also committed by Minnal Murali, and Shibu is happy to take advantage.  While Jaison is performing good deeds as Minnal Murali, Shibu is committing crimes while using the same identity.  

And then Usha makes her choice, and everything goes wrong.  Kerala gets an actual supervillain, and a true superhero must rise in order to stop him.

This is a superhero origin story, and it hits all of the expected beats.  The rural setting makes a difference, though, and that's not the only twist.  I don't think I've ever seen the hero and villain using the same identity before, for one thing.  And while Usha is very much trapped by circumstance, Biji has plenty of agency, never really winds up in the "hero's girlfriend" role, and is at least as important to saving the day in the final confrontation as Jaison is.  Ultimately, though, Minnal Murali is a good superhero story well told.

I'd like to be under the sea.

As I write this, Sooryavanshi, the latest installment of Rohit Shetty's "Police Universe", is breaking all sorts of box office records in India.  It's not available anywhere near me yet, so instead I'm going to take a look at an earlier installment of the "Police Universe."  Little Singham: Samundar Ka Sikandar (2021) recounts the time when Singham, the unstoppable supercop played by Ajay Devgn, traveled to an undersea kingdom, rescued a mermaid princess, and fought a giant squid.  It's weird that he never mentions this stuff in the movies.

Of course, this isn't exactly Singham as played by Devgn; it's Little Singham, because apparently when he was a child Singham was already a police officer who fought demons and mutant animal hybrids.  (Frankly, the gangsters and terrorists he deals with as an adult are a bit of a step down.)  Why is Little Singham already a cop?  He just is, okay?  Apparently he maintains a secret identity, though it doesn't come up in this movie at all.  We do get to meet young Singham's annoying sidekicks, though: Chikki, who is a monkey, and Lattu, who is not a monkey.

Singham and a good portion of his supporting cast are on a cruise ship near Hawaii when the ship strikes a rock and begins to sink.  Little Singham springs into action and saves all of the passengers and crew, but the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean and bounces off of a mysterious domed undersea city.

Meanwhile, under the sea, the monstrous Jalgohra, nephew of King Sagadeer, and Haivaan, aquatic villain with a magic staff that can create undersea storms, decide to join forces and conquer both the undersea world and the world above.  The shipwreck gives them a chance to try and capture Princess Laharika, who is sometimes a mermaid and sometimes a whale.  The whales of the ocean send out a distress call which Singham can understand for some reason, so he and Chikki and Lattu put on their advanced wetsuits and dive to the rescue.

Our heroes save the princess and she takes them into the undersea city, where outsiders are strictly forbidden.  She casts a quick spell transforming them into hybrid sea creatures, but it only lasts about five minutes or so and then they are discovered, captured, and brought before the king.  And that's when Jalgohra and Haaiwan strike and reveal their evil plan: they're going to release the monstrous octopus Vikraal, which will devastate the underseas kingdom and allow the villains to conquer under and above the waves.  After a quick fight in which Singham nearly defeats them despite his hands being tied, the villains kidnap the king, and Singham and friends set out on an epic quest to find the magic pearl and trident they must use to save the day.  

Well, I say epic; the movie is less than an hour long, so there's only so much adventuring they can fit in.  The plot moves at an incredible pace, and there's no time for inconsequential things like "character development" or "explaining why these people are in Hawaii in the first place." 

To be fair, I am very far from the target audience for this movie, and the children it is intended for have probably seen some of the many, many episodes of the Little Singham TV show rather than relying on what they know from the Ajay Devgn movies.  And not always knowing what is going on doesn't prevent me from appreciating the sensational character find of 2021, "Guard Who Looks and Sounds Like Kermit."

The H stands for Hanuman

A western movie can be adapted for Indian audiences in several different ways.  Sometimes you get a relatively faithful remake, though the shift in cultural perspective always changes things.  Sometimes Indian filmmakers will take parts of one or more movies and remix them in different ways.  And sometimes you get a movie like Superman (1980), where the filmmakers start with a very obvious point of inspiration and then run screaming in a completely different direction.

Superman has had plenty of cinematic origin stories over the years, but this movie skips the usual doomed planet and desperate scientists, and instead rips off Batman.  Young Raja watches helplessly as his parents are murdered by a trio of bandits in cowboy hats.  The bandits murder the kindly temple priest on the way out, so Raja goes to live with the priest's widow and daughter, but he is determined to have justice, and after proving his devotion Hanuman appears and grants him superpowers. 

Years pass.  Raja (now played by NTR) is not a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, he's a part owner of a mica mine. He's devoted to his adopted mother (Pamndari Bai) and sister Lakshmi (Geeta), and divides his time between mine stuff, spending time with his family, wooing Jaya (Jaya Prada), the daughter of his business partner (Allu Ramalingaiah), and performing the occasional daring rescue; he is secretly Superman, after all.

Meanwhile, the three bandits who murdered Raja's parents have become successful crimelords.  When gold is discovered at the mica mine, they hatch a cunning plan to seize control, a plan which involves ordering their goons to dress up like ghosts and kill random villagers because that will help in some way?  Though to be fair they are also kidnapping people and forcing them to mine gold, which at least means that the bad guys get some gold.

Still, Superman is on the case, and he quickly realizes that he's dealing with his parents' killers.  he quickly eliminates Jai Singh (Tyagaraju) and his herd of brainwashed murder-elephants.  Sardar (Srilanka Manohar) and his death ray don't fare any better.  But the third bandit remains elusive, and Raja soon has other things to worry about.

Laxmi has been secretly canoodling with Mohan (Chakarapani), a boy from her college, and she has become pregnant.  Raja goes to meet the boy, and Mohan promises to speak to his millionaire father Dharma Rao (Kaikala Satyanarayana).  Rao agrees to the match, if Raja will give him his share of the mine as a dowry, and since it's a matter of his sister's prestige, Raja agrees.  However, when the papers are handed over minutes before the wedding ceremony, Rao takes his son and flees to Hong Kong, leaving Laxmi to face total social ruin.  (CLASSIC SUPERMAN ACTION!)

Raja has no choice but to follow him to Hong Kong, which is also sometimes Singapore, at least if the subtitles can be trusted.  What he doesn't know is that Rao is secretly Maharaj, the third bandit, and that Maharaj is plotting to kill him with he help of hotel manager Miss Lee (Jayamalini), who is also an evil witch.  (She's not secretly an evil witch; she's pretty open about using her spooky powers, and she wanders around in broad daylight in an evil sorceress outfit, complete with golden bat headdress.) And what they don't realize is that Raja is secretly Superman; it's easy to forget because he hasn't done any Superman stuff for a while.

This isn't the Superman I'm used to; he's bulletproof, moderately strong, and able to fly at a reasonable pace, but he won't be juggling planets any time soon.  And Raja is nothing like Clark Kent; they're both good guys, but Raja is a business owner and family man and anything but mild mannered, and his concerns are the concerns of a Tollywood hero from 1980.  He is, in other words, an appropriate Superman for his place and time.  The movie's ambitions have outstripped its effects budget, its rather baroque plot has outstripped the rather scanty concept, and the end result is a little silly, but Superman should be a little silly.