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.

Superman versus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

 Krrish 3 (2013) is the sequel to Krrish, which is the sequel to Koi . . . Mil Gaya.  It's an odd way to build a superhero franchise, because Koi . . . Mil Gaya is not a superhero movie, it's a Bollywood spin on ET mixed with Flowers For Algernon; friendly alien Jadoo gives bullied and developmentally disabled Rohit Mehra (Hrithik Roshan) advanced physical and mental powers, enabling him to save the day, get the girl (Preity Zinta), and earn his happy ending.  Then, between movies, Rohit is kidnapped by Bollywood Lex Luthor Siddhant Arya (Naseeruddin Shah), and his wife dies of grief.  Fortunately, in the next movie Rohit's son Krishna (also Hrithik Roshan) becomes the superhero Krrish (which is still one of the lazier superhero names since Blackagar Boltagon started calling himself Black Bolt), rescues Rohit, and defeats Doctor Arya's future-predicting supercomputer.

Now, Rohit is a respected scientist working for the Indian Research Institute, and Krishna is married to plucky reporter Priya (Priyanka Chopra).  Krishna can't manage to hold a job, because he's always rushing off to save the day as Krrish.  However, Priya is expecting their first child, and the little family is absurdly happy and frankly adorable.

Meanwhile, quadriplegic and telekinetic scientist Kaal (Vivek Oberoi) has created a team of mutants enhanced with animal DNA.  There are a lot of them, including Ant Man, Rhino Man, and Scorpion Woman, but the important ones are Striker (Gowhar Khan), a dangerous brawler with a prehensile tongue, and Kaya (Kangana Renaut), whose chameleon DNA gives her the power to be Msytique.

But mutant making is only one of Kaal's interests.  He also creates viruses, releases them on unsuspecting cities, and then, as the head of Kaal Pharmaceuticals, he sells the cure for an absurd amount of money.  (And I have to say, this particular plotline hits differently in 2021 than it did in 2013.)

During the first part of the movie, the forces of good and evil don't really interact.  Kaal stays in his evil lair, making mutants, unleashing plagues, and gnawing on the scenery.  Rohit tinkers unsuccessfully with a device to replicate Jadoo's power to channel sunlight into lifegiving energy (and what are the odds of something like that paying off before the end of the movie?), and Krishna divides his time between hanging out with his family and saving people from various disasters, along the way inspiring a movement by telling a boy he's rescued that "Anyone who takes away tears and spreads happiness is Krrish."  It's a lot like the Shatktimaan Friends Club, only with more foreshadowing.

And then Kaal unleashes his latest virus on Mumbai.  Krrish does what he can, but this is a problem that he can't solve, even with superpowers.  But Rohit can; he notices that Krrish is seemingly immune to the virus, so he uses Krishna's blood to create a cure rather than wait for Kaal Pharmaceuticals.  Kaal is both furious and confused; both the virus and the cure are based on his own DNA, so how could anyone else make a cure?  He decides that it is, finally, time to unleash the mutants.

This is not the most original movie ever made.  Kaal's mutants are blatantly lifted from the X-Men movies, and while Kaal is no Magneto, he does seem to use his telekinesis to movie metal objects almost exclusively.  Meanwhile, Krrish is faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, though he combines the Superman power set with Peter Parker's career aptitude, and during one fight scene he duplicates Shaktimaan's trademark spin.

Original or not, though, Krrish 3 is a remarkably efficient distillation of my favorite superhero tropes.  Yes, there are amazing action scenes, but Krrish doesn't just fight bad guys and brood on rooftops.  He save people.  He inspires people.  (I am an absolute sucker for a good "I am Spartacus"/ordinary citizens standing up to the supervillain scene, and this movie has a great one.)  And he does it without ever losing sight of the people who love him.  This is "Stuff That I Love About Superheroes: The Motion Picture."