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Aabra Ka Daabra Recap, part 1
(This is part 1 - there would be way too many screenshots otherwise.)
What I am reviewing for you today is a movie that I ran across online about a year and a half or so ago, from a reviewthat I can't find but will link if I do here (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thomasyan), that was pimped as Bollywood's take on Harry Potter. I purchased it from nehaflix.com, for the grand price of six dollars, and it's been well worth that in sheer WTFery alone. (my first impressions, the first time I watched it, here.)
Not only does it rip off Harry Potter, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well, and it's also in 3-D. Yeah. 3-D. This will make the third time I've seen this all the way trhough, and let me tell you I'm not going to watch it again without some serious booze in me and a lot of other poeple watching and heckling. Six dollars' worth of entertainment can really only go so far.
This masterpiece is called...
You'll have to excuse the screencaps - being in 3D means that unless you're actually wearing 3D glasses, it looks sort of fussy. And then my screencapper isn't that great, but it's not like I'm trying to do great artwork with these, just giving you an idea of what they're like.
It starts off with someone explaining how to use 3D glasses - four pair of which are included in the DVD case. If you happen to have 3D glasse, run and get them because the screencaps will indeed be in 3D when you put them on. Got them? Good. So please...
The credits roll, and it's notable that every person, even the director and hairstylist and composers and so on get their pictures next to their name. The credits also tell us that it proudly stars...
The movie proper opens with an intro discussing how this great sage started Aabra Ka Daabra 200 years ago. He then invested a bunch of power in this wand.
An evil sorceress fought him for it, imprisoning him in a crystal, but she died. 200 years later, her descendant is headmistress at AKD. Our hero, the annoying littleGary Stu swot, Shanu, shows up.
He meets the school caretaker,Hagrid Limu, and since nobody can go into teh school at night, Limu invites him back to his place to sleep.
The next morning Shanu gets called in to the headmistress's office, where she's punishing a student by magically bouncing him around upside down and sending him into a picture (moving pictures, of course). Didn't get any good screencaps of the kid, but here's the headmistress, played by combodian Beauty Tiara, known randomly in the subtitles as either "RB" or "Arbi."
Next, Shanu meetsDraco Malfoy, Changezi. Changezi is most notable for his highlights being a different color in every scene. Shanu pisses off Changezi by first existing and secondly by being an annoying git. I gotta say, I'm with Changezi on this one.
Next we meetRon and Hermione Pinky and Dinky. Not even the subtitles know which one is which, as they end up randomly being referred to by either name. I eventually figured out that the taller one, who tends to wear blue, is Pinky, and the short one who eats all the time and tends to wear pink, is Dinky.
Their first class is Magical Concentration, taught by this dork:
Shanu manages to levitate his wand on the first try, amazing the dork (whose name I forgot to write down) and irritating Changeziand me.
After class everyone goes outside and we get our first song-and-dance number, where theJets and the Sharks Young Gang, led by Shanu and the Elder Gang, led by Changezi, throw paint-filled water balloons, play tug-of-war, and dance and sing. And in all things, Changezi's gang gets thouroghly trounced by Shanu's.
"When you're a Jet, You're a Jet all the way From your first cigarette To your last dyin' day."
Then there'sbroomstick riding flying carpet class, taught by Madame Hooch Suzanne (or Susan, depending on what the subtitles call her at any given time. It's pronounced 'Suzanne', though).
Suzanne asks the kids why flying carpets are so important. Changezi says you can use them to catch sparrows and birds, earning a "Very bad!" from Suzanne. Shanu says that we can use the carpets to catch injured birds and to heal them. Suck-up.
In order to fly a carpet effectively, you need to adopt this Pose of Dorkishness:
That night, Shanu thinks of the past. His dad is a great stage magician, who vanished in the middle of a Trick Gone Utterly Wrong. His mom is desperate for a job, and so begsDom De Luise his uncle Dilbagh for a job that she never ends up taking and is never referred to after this scene. He takes her to friend's house where we meet his friend, who must be some sort of decently-known comedian in India or some such, because he's in this scene and in the song-and-dance next and then never shows up again, yet gets good billing in the credits.
Whle they're waiting, they see an ad on TV for a contest. The subtitles call them "exam pads," but I believe we'll call them "pencils." One pack of Camlin Exam pencils has a GoldenTicket Wrapper on it, and if you find it, then you win a scholarship to a good school.
The comedian's daughterVeruca Salt enters, throwing rocks at a motorcycle-helmet-wearing tutor, then sees an ad in a paper.
In what has got to be the result of the producer landing two enormous product-placement contracts and putting them both in, even though IT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER Parle-G Biscuits horn in on the show. It seems that 2 or 3 packs of Parle-G have Diamond Wrappers in them, and if you find one, you get ... a scholarship to a good school.
Later that night, Shanu confesses to his uncle Dilbagh that he really wants this, but is afraid he won't get it, and Dilbagh breaks into a song.
The song is all about holding on to your dreams, which involves a lot of kids, a dream of Veruca Salt's that she's won, although she hasn't, some sort of ad-looking thing for Parle-G, which makes me wonder if they used it as an actual ad in India or not, a lot of gratuitous shoving-things-toward-the-camera, and a random Western couple who proably got to India on their pilgrimage, ran out of money, and are now serving as random Western extras in Bollywood in order to get some more bucks and continue their travels.
Charlie Shanu buys a pack of pencils, and there is no Golden Wrapper. Awwwwwwwwww.
But then he goes home, talks to the picture of his presumed-dead dad, opens a pack of Parle-G, and ...
A Diamond Wrapper! A winnar is Shanu! His mom comes by, shares his joy, reminds him that it's his birthday and gives him the present that all young boys hope like hell they get ... a pack of pencils.
Which, naturally contain a Golden Wrapper, because Shanu is JUST THAT GOOD.
Shanu get his double scholarship and announces he wants to go to the School of Magic to be just like his dad. His mother says she doens't want people knowing who his dad is.
The flashback ends, and Shanu realizes that the caretaker Limu knew the same sort of ghetto-handshake that his dad did, and he, Pinky, and Dinky head to Limu's place to ask him about it. Turns out his dad and Limu were best friends and used to be faculty at the School of Magic.
Then Tu Tu, a tiny Casper-the-Ghost like creature, warns them something is coming, so Limu thrusts three pills directly at the camera and tells the trio to put them in their mouths and they'll be invisible.
As they run out, invisible, and Limu pretends he's asleep, Arbi comes into his room and checks that he's asleep for no reason whatsoever. Then she and her pet flying head take off through the woods. The invisible trio follow, and end up at a secret building, and sneak inside, where they take the pills out of their mouths and go visible so that the expensive CGI which renders them transparent can be given a rest. TO their shock and amazement, they find that Arbi has a captive, and that it's...
Yes! Shanu's father! Chained up, with a ring around his neck that is so big his head will fit through it and thus serves no purpose at all!
Pinky shows an ounce of snese and shuts Shanu up.
And then, it goes to ...
And I shall continue this in another journal entry.
What I am reviewing for you today is a movie that I ran across online about a year and a half or so ago, from a review
thomasyan), that was pimped as Bollywood's take on Harry Potter. I purchased it from nehaflix.com, for the grand price of six dollars, and it's been well worth that in sheer WTFery alone. (my first impressions, the first time I watched it, here.)Not only does it rip off Harry Potter, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well, and it's also in 3-D. Yeah. 3-D. This will make the third time I've seen this all the way trhough, and let me tell you I'm not going to watch it again without some serious booze in me and a lot of other poeple watching and heckling. Six dollars' worth of entertainment can really only go so far.
This masterpiece is called...
Aabra Ka Daabra; The School of Magic
You'll have to excuse the screencaps - being in 3D means that unless you're actually wearing 3D glasses, it looks sort of fussy. And then my screencapper isn't that great, but it's not like I'm trying to do great artwork with these, just giving you an idea of what they're like.
It starts off with someone explaining how to use 3D glasses - four pair of which are included in the DVD case. If you happen to have 3D glasse, run and get them because the screencaps will indeed be in 3D when you put them on. Got them? Good. So please...
The credits roll, and it's notable that every person, even the director and hairstylist and composers and so on get their pictures next to their name. The credits also tell us that it proudly stars...
The movie proper opens with an intro discussing how this great sage started Aabra Ka Daabra 200 years ago. He then invested a bunch of power in this wand.
An evil sorceress fought him for it, imprisoning him in a crystal, but she died. 200 years later, her descendant is headmistress at AKD. Our hero, the annoying little
He meets the school caretaker,
The next morning Shanu gets called in to the headmistress's office, where she's punishing a student by magically bouncing him around upside down and sending him into a picture (moving pictures, of course). Didn't get any good screencaps of the kid, but here's the headmistress, played by combodian Beauty Tiara, known randomly in the subtitles as either "RB" or "Arbi."
Next, Shanu meets
Next we meet
Their first class is Magical Concentration, taught by this dork:
Shanu manages to levitate his wand on the first try, amazing the dork (whose name I forgot to write down) and irritating Changezi
After class everyone goes outside and we get our first song-and-dance number, where the
"When you're a Jet, You're a Jet all the way From your first cigarette To your last dyin' day."
Then there's
Suzanne asks the kids why flying carpets are so important. Changezi says you can use them to catch sparrows and birds, earning a "Very bad!" from Suzanne. Shanu says that we can use the carpets to catch injured birds and to heal them. Suck-up.
In order to fly a carpet effectively, you need to adopt this Pose of Dorkishness:
That night, Shanu thinks of the past. His dad is a great stage magician, who vanished in the middle of a Trick Gone Utterly Wrong. His mom is desperate for a job, and so begs
Whle they're waiting, they see an ad on TV for a contest. The subtitles call them "exam pads," but I believe we'll call them "pencils." One pack of Camlin Exam pencils has a Golden
The comedian's daughter
In what has got to be the result of the producer landing two enormous product-placement contracts and putting them both in, even though IT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER Parle-G Biscuits horn in on the show. It seems that 2 or 3 packs of Parle-G have Diamond Wrappers in them, and if you find one, you get ... a scholarship to a good school.
Later that night, Shanu confesses to his uncle Dilbagh that he really wants this, but is afraid he won't get it, and Dilbagh breaks into a song.
The song is all about holding on to your dreams, which involves a lot of kids, a dream of Veruca Salt's that she's won, although she hasn't, some sort of ad-looking thing for Parle-G, which makes me wonder if they used it as an actual ad in India or not, a lot of gratuitous shoving-things-toward-the-camera, and a random Western couple who proably got to India on their pilgrimage, ran out of money, and are now serving as random Western extras in Bollywood in order to get some more bucks and continue their travels.
But then he goes home, talks to the picture of his presumed-dead dad, opens a pack of Parle-G, and ...
A Diamond Wrapper! A winnar is Shanu! His mom comes by, shares his joy, reminds him that it's his birthday and gives him the present that all young boys hope like hell they get ... a pack of pencils.
Which, naturally contain a Golden Wrapper, because Shanu is JUST THAT GOOD.
Shanu get his double scholarship and announces he wants to go to the School of Magic to be just like his dad. His mother says she doens't want people knowing who his dad is.
The flashback ends, and Shanu realizes that the caretaker Limu knew the same sort of ghetto-handshake that his dad did, and he, Pinky, and Dinky head to Limu's place to ask him about it. Turns out his dad and Limu were best friends and used to be faculty at the School of Magic.
Then Tu Tu, a tiny Casper-the-Ghost like creature, warns them something is coming, so Limu thrusts three pills directly at the camera and tells the trio to put them in their mouths and they'll be invisible.
As they run out, invisible, and Limu pretends he's asleep, Arbi comes into his room and checks that he's asleep for no reason whatsoever. Then she and her pet flying head take off through the woods. The invisible trio follow, and end up at a secret building, and sneak inside, where they take the pills out of their mouths and go visible so that the expensive CGI which renders them transparent can be given a rest. TO their shock and amazement, they find that Arbi has a captive, and that it's...
Yes! Shanu's father! Chained up, with a ring around his neck that is so big his head will fit through it and thus serves no purpose at all!
Pinky shows an ounce of snese and shuts Shanu up.
And then, it goes to ...
And I shall continue this in another journal entry.
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whoa
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I get misty thinking of the good times we could have had, and damage we could have done to our bodies and brains, if only we'd known of Bollywood.
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Depends on why. Were you wearing them because Ten was wearing thm in the last two episodes of this season's Doctor Who? :D
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I'm on the Sci-Fi Channel schedule for Dr. Who, so I'm a season behind. :(
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