A Bollywood Sci-Fi flick, eh?
The first time I heard about Koi Mil Gaya, I admit to be mildly interested. I envisioned an epic space opera with emphasis on the opera. I imagined something as camp and kitsch as the Flash Gordon movie with dance numbers.
The credits open with a comets crashing and galaxies swirling. Words scroll up the screen in that oh so familiar fashion and… we get the opening credits. So what I get instead is a very much a straight down the line Bollywood film with token lip service to the Sci-Fi tag that treads a very fine line between homage and rip off of a few early Spielberg classics.
Of course, this does not necessarily make for a bad movie experience. Once you can get past the familiar storyline and questionable science, you can just sit back and enjoy the usual Bollywood staples – a bit of action, a bit of romance, some dance numbers and questionable costime changes and a whole lot of melodrama and sentimentality.
Hrithik Roshan is really quite likable as our protaganist, the retarded Rohit. He does a great job of exuding the boyish humour and innocence that I am sure people are familiar with from some or those old Disney movies like Freaky Friday or Tom Hanks in Big. And his transformation is pretty darn jaw dropping. Priety Zinta as the love interest Shisha is fine with what she has. Not a particularly strong dramatic character but sings and dances well enough for you to ignore that fact.
What was disappointing however was the alien. With the spectacular (read: pretty darn average) CGI in the opening and beginning (look out for the flock of birds), I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly but once I had gotten my head around the movie, I was expecting, at the very least, a singing, dancing alien. And I don’t think I’ll be moving into too much spoiler territory by saying that, no, we do not get it. Sure there is the one musical number where everyone else dances around him while the costumed midget ambles along and does the one word on cue but goddammit am I not the only who thinks this is not good enough!
Sigh.
As I said in the beginning, this is not what you should be looking for in a Bollywood film and yes I should be kicking myself for raising my expectations. The plot is pretty darn predictable (especially once you work out it’s ‘influences’) though I have to admit I was expecting some plot elements that never happened but I think that’s mainly because we had hit the two and a half hour mark at that point and they needed to finish the film. And, being a Bollywood film, the overly sentimental happy ending does not have any substance to it at all.
So really, a pretty standard Bollywood flick. Hardly ground breaking but still quite enjoyable as long as you switch your brain off and maybe have some friends you can heckle it with.