Krrish 3 2013

It should be little surprise that after watching Koi… Mil Gaya and Krrish that I would finish up the trilogy by watching Krrish 3 as the final movie in this trilogy. That is, until a potential fourth movie is made. It still baffles me as to why they went against a traditional numbering system as Krrish is only a character in the second two movies but the decision was made to give this film the number three instead of the number 2 or even just a different subtitle all together. And while this is really the first film in the series to start things off and spend almost the entire run time as a superhero movie, that doesn’t make it a stronger movie. It borrows heavily from X-Men and Spider-Man and only has a handful of moments where it really makes a name for itself as a unique superhero movie. It’s still decent fun, but it didn’t live up to the playfulness of Krrish and the overly CGI action was a step down from the mostly wire work action of the previous film.

This film brings in its supervillain and his minions right away and it doesn’t shy away too much about its inspirations. Kaal is a wheelchair bound head of a corporation that has telekinetic abilities, though he generally only uses them on metal objects. So, it’s pretty apparent that he’s basically a cross between Professor X and Magneto. As for his minions, the two main ones are not-Mystique and not-Toad along with a generically strong guy, a speedster woman, and probably one or two others who get very little screen time and almost no dialogue. His plan is to unleash an incredibly deadly artificial virus so that they can sell the antidote for a tidy profit.

One of the good points of this film that differentiates it from most other superhero movies is the virus subplot. It’s an enemy that Krrish has no power against but unfortunately we only really get one or two brief scenes that shows the horror of the virus and the absolute powerlessness of Krrish as he does whatever he can to save people from this unseen terror. But since this is a superhero movie, and he gets his powers from aliens, he is immune from the virus. Another good aspect of this film is the increased role of Rohit as a character. Just like in Krrish, Hrithik Roshan plays the dual roles excellently, differentiating between the fatherly, nerdy scientist Rohit and the heartthrob, heroic Krishna. Here, Rohit gets to do quite a few things, including creating an antidote for the virus, and creating an invention inspired by the alien Jadoo which he eventually uses to sacrifice himself so he can save Krrish.

Where this film doesn’t quite work is where it becomes similar to other superhero movies, not the least of which is the X-Men films with all of Kaal’s minions referred to initially as “Manimals” before at another point flat out called mutants. The film also opens with Krishna having the difficult task of holding down a job where he has to frequently leave his post unannounced to save the day somewhere as Krrish only to return to his job and get fired. There’s even a couple quick scenes where one of his coworkers at a security job acts like he is really Krrish as he also ran away during a robbery when Krrish came shortly afterward to save the day. And as for the villains as characters, aside from not-Mystique, they were all very one-note with not-Toad getting quite a lot of screen time, but zero personality. Kaal plays up the supervillain angle but generally comes off as boring rather than fearsome. Not-Mystique was the one good villain of the bunch, especially as she gets to infiltrate Krishna’s inner circle by posing as his wife. And while the effects for her powers look great, they also occasionally switch back to the villain actress to both help remind the audience that it is actually the villain, but it also switches when the film is trying to show her point of view as a person rather than as a doppleganger. She also gets the sympathetic backstory where she really is a good person at heart and was being manipulated by Kaal.

This film also reminded me quite a bit of Man of Steel during its climactic third act battle, which is interesting as it came out the exact same year. It all comes down to Krrish and Kaal fighting each other and they have both been infused with the power of Rohit. Kaal initially gets a bone marrow transfer to somehow cure his paralysis which also supposedly increases his telekinetic abilities. And after Kaal kills Krrish, Rohit uses his invention to sacrifice himself in order to resurrect Krrish and also give him extra powers because of course it does. This all leads up to Kaal infused with random bits of metal surrounding his body like armor fighting against Krrish while destroying several tall buildings. Just without nearly the budget of Man of Steel so the seams really start to show after just a brief period of time. Honestly, the seams of the effects show quite a bit during all of the fight scenes as the super powered fights are done with CGI large objects or a giant CGI tongue instead of practical wire work and choreography and it just doesn’t look nearly as good. It was still a decent effort, and I was glad to see Rohit and Krrish finally have a fair amount of screen time together after spending one movie with Rohit and the other with Krrish, but the other two movies felt much more like they carved out their own identity while this film was trying to be something that it could never live up to. I’d still be interested if they come back with a Krrish 4, but as it stands, the second movie in this trilogy, Krrish is my favorite. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.