Nor does he try to base his farce on some stirring reality, instead he has woven a flurry of madcap comic situations around an assembly of moronic characters led by Jolly Maker (Cyrus Broacha).

Cyrus is a master at laughing at himself but Kunal has given him stock situations made for goofy characters in cinema. He doesn’t look inspired as he ties his shoelaces all wrong, trips at every other step and opens his umbrella when the lady on the first floor waters her plants.

Some of his crazy antics don’t pass muster. He fails to recognise his colleague and dream girl Monica (Dia Mirza) simply because kidnappers had covered her mouth. And under pressure he leaks in his boss Mahesh Manjrekar’s cabin with devastating results. Mahesh has been given the licence to ham without the bullets to tickle. He translates some dimwit Hindi dialogue into English with bombastic results.

Jolly gets trapped in a plot hatched by an ex-maharaja of Mumbai, Holly Holkar (Boman Irani). The old man is running out of time but not zest. He wants his city back. He plots to bomb the mantralaya because he believes that beneath the government headquarters is his palace. His henchmen belong to his age group. One sharpshooter suffers from Parkinson’s disease and the other has a cataract operation done four times!

As part of some plot, the maharaja gets members of the heritage committee kidnapped one by one. First it is Monica and then it is her builder boss (Mahesh). Somehow Jolly gets into this mess and makes a mockery of the lunatic ploy. Boman tries to be realistic in a funny tunic and bizarre wig but the screenplay provides him little scope to play.

Dia brightens the proceedings as the shapely architect. She is the only one who brings a semblance of logic amid the mad rush. Again some dreary songs mar her efforts.

If the satire is about reclaiming the past glory of a city polluted by different forces in different times, it simply doesn’t hold. If the idea is to create theatre of the absurd, it will leave Camus cringing in his grave.

It’s a fruit without a core, a nut ready to crack!

This is yet another sequel which fails to live up to the original. Lord Ganesh’s form and verve provide plenty of opportunities for film-makers to play with. Mythology is full of stories about the deeds of this playful son of Lord Shiva. In a nasty mood he could rob the moon of its light. But he is not all brawn, folks. When asked to cover the world, he takes a round around his parents.

However, most of his leela was done within the first instalment of this animated franchise. Here director Pankaj Sharma is left with only a couple of interesting episodes. So the build-up takes time. He makes it clear at the outset that the effort is being undertaken on public demand. So you have to be a little patient!

He gives a recap of what we have seen so far, pampers kids by praising their intelligence. A group of rodents indulge in pointless gibberish before getting to the point. They narrate stories of young Ganesh one by one. They talk of times when his father entrusted him with the task to pen Mahabharat because he was the only one who could match the poetic speed of Ved Vyas. Vyas had put the condition that Ganesh has to understand every couplet before writing and the intelligent boy proved up to the task.

Cut to the story of the wicked Gajamukhasur who had tricked Lord Shiva into blessing him with immortality. Only Ganesh could take on him because he doesn’t fall into animal or human bracket. In between, Ganesh indulges in some banter with his vehicle, the all-important rodent! The animation lacks the finesse and smoothness which children have become used to courtesy incessant supply of animation from Hollywood. It can hold the attention of only pre-school and nursery kids.

Nothing more than a good old lesson in mythology with the intrinsic message of integrity.

In a week offering plenty of choices to kids, this one is for the naughtiest of the lot. Again it is all fluff but done in a smart fashion. Director Robert Rodriguez has opted for an episodic narrative and a frantic pace where he tells the story through a web of shorts.

Simply put, it is the tale of an ordinary boy Toe (Jimmy Bennett) who is the target of a group of school bullies. One day while evading the bullies he gets a rainbow-coloured rock that grants its holder any number of wishes.

When Toe wishes for friends, he gets a bunch of tiny spaceships bearing aliens. Eventually as the rock changes hands, the unending wishes cause all kinds of mayhem. It creates conjoined parents for Toe because they were yearning to come close in their busy schedules. His sister’s boyfriend turns into a giant when she tells him to “grow up”.

Robert goes for an overkill of special effects when he introduces a monster booger. But amid all this chaos of crocodiles walking straight and boys turning into beetles and birds, he slips in a word for assessing your wishes and lack of communication in a world which is better connected than ever before.

A dumb enterprise blustering in the garb of the gifted!

Here you have rodents engaged in a different mission. A bunch of guinea pigs are out to save the humanity from the evil designs of a business tycoon. He wants to turn insipid appliances like a coffee-maker into potential weapons against human beings. Zach Galifianakis plays their FBI handler and Bill Nighy takes on the role of the tycoon. And yes, there is a mole amid the moles as well, who has his own equations to settle with the humankind.

Director Hoyt Yeatman doesn’t seem to have a script. He has just got an idea and a hefty budget at his disposal to indulge in eye-popping special effects. Yeatman couldn’t use the voices of Penelope Cruz and Nicolas Cage to his advantage. We have to make do with some silly wisecracking and overblown set piece sequences. Some of them are a sheer delight to watch but after a point monotony sets in as the screenplay turns into a tiring cat-and-mouse game.

An easy recipe for the undemanding kids!

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