Jumbo Review

by **Sal** Thu 08 Jan 2009, 4:50 am

Brimming with new genre of 'Animation', Bollywood has been striding on with its best efforts in churning out a perfect of its style. Well, note this down. Possibly, even a diehard fan of animation flicks wouldn't appreciate 'Jumbo' for it isn't so appealing. Perhaps, an Akshay Kumar's fan would go through similar-experiences.

Indeed, it's an animation flick sans 'out-of-box-thinking' and furthermore, the motif of plotline merely clichéd of 'get lost-get found-seek revenge' pattern. Uh-huh, it does carry whole lot of traces from Disney's top-charting 'The Lion King' made more than a decade ago.

Patently, Animation flicks made in India doesn't hap to be so enchanting in terms of narration as well the well-represented graphical characters. Nevertheless, 'Jumbo' is an elision as the pictorial characters are live-in-action. But regrettably, the sluggish narration fails to make 'Jumbo' as a tantalizing piece.

As a young elephant, Jumbo is taunted by the other elephants because he is fatherless. Naturally, Jumbo is curious about his father, and he's told that his father is a war elephant for the king.

So Jumbo wants to find his father. Still a young elephant, he wanders off in search of his father.
He is soon captured by a raiding party. In trying to escape from the camp, the young elephant is befriended by a boy prince, who has been ransomed to his foes. The prince has the ability to calm Jumbo into thinking clearly, and Jumbo makes his escape.

Heading all the way to a village, the grown-up Jumbo (Akshay Kumar) happens to meet her girlfriend (Lara Dutta). And then, the call goes out from the king for elephants for his army. Jumbo is taken to the palace. There, he is seen by his mother (Dimple Kapadia), who calls out to him. Jumbo goes wild in trying to break free from his chains to meet his mother. The King notices this, and remembers Jumbo from his childhood. The king is able to calm Jumbo, and from then on Jumbo serves as the personal war elephant of the king.

In battle, Jumbo meets a giant war elephant Bhaktavar (Gulshan Grover) with fiery eyes responsible for the death of Jumbo's father, and Jumbo gets a chance to acquit him in battle for the glory of the kingdom, and take revenge.

With attempt of savoring to the tastes of kids, 'Jumbo' runs short of humor quotients. Except, Rajpal Yadav's voiced character of Zazoo Kinda, there aren't any drollness on rest of the characters. Precisely, 'Jumbo' has mixed plotlines of 'The Lion King' – central character avenging for its father death and 'Finding Nemo' that's about searching for mother. Lekhin, we don't find such emotions or comedic attributes of both these flicks over here.

Alas! None of the lip movements by elephants can be viewed as it takes place behind their trunks. You believe or not, their conversations look alike voice overs. But you can't blame it, they're elephants and makers of this flick could've opted for some other creature.

Akshay Kumar is just narrator in the first half while takes on the characterization of Jumbo in the latter part. Voices of Dimple Kapadia and Lara Dutta are off mediocre while Gulshan Grover's voice sans intonation doesn't suit for the characterization. Overall, none of the voices are so sharper on modulation and you can call it 'imperfection'…

As a whole, Jumbo isn't so impressive for any audiences while it has possibilities of occupying theaters for Christmas holidays. Kids looking out animation flick for the first time may enjoy watching it…

Verdict: Watch it once….
Rating: 50/100