Delhi safari: Engaging, endearing & very Bollywood

Delhi safari
Starring; Akshaye Khanna, Govinda, Suniel Shetty, Boman Irani, Urmila Matondkar
At: PVR & others
Rated: 6/10
Here comes an Indian animation that is entirely entertaining. No, you can’t compare the illustrations with the long-standing technological acumen of a Disney or something similar, but still Nikhil Advani’s animal kingdom comes across as mostly engrossing. The entirely Bollywoodised show, with soulful songs and peppy voice-overs you can instantly identify, not to mention the vintage Bollywood drama that sits pretty on the shoulders of the four-legged beings of a decimated environment, makes you laugh and come along with the motely campaigners against deforestation.
Advani’s Delhi Safari is a typical love-romance-poignancy-family drama which not so subtly puts across the message of saving the earth by saving the fauna and flora. Urmila Matondkar as the recently widowed tigress, Govinda as the scheming and rabble-rousing monkey, Akshaye Khanna as the parrot who knows how to speak the human language, Boman Irani as the big bear who is a tad Anglicised — all these are characters you spot instantly and identify with. In fact, the voices are quite the characters you have known for ages and that makes it all the more becoming.
Delhi Safari is a good attempt at animation, powered and peppered well with all that Bollywoodese you have come to love. Go and enjoy with your children and make them learn some environmentalism in the process.
Source: Published in The Sunday Pioneer, 21 october, 2012

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