The Archies movie review: Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Agastya Nanda film is a bland bauble – The Indian Express
In Riverdale, a small sylvan Indian city with a big Anglo-Indian group, everybody is aware of everybody. It’s 1964, a time of innocence, a time of confidences. Clear-faced youngsters flit about doing teenager stuff, strumming guitars within the high-school band, making eyes and flirting and relationship — the handsome Archie Andrews, the gorgeous Betty Cooper, the sassy Veronica Lodge, the always-hungry Jughead Jones, the cocky Reggie Mantle, the likeable however uninteresting Moose, the smart Ethel — because the adults, together with the beloved Pop Tate who runs the cafeteria with its massive burgers and tall shakes, go about their enterprise.
This model new Netflix iteration of the Archie comics, which started printing within the US in 1941, and held such sway in choose city Indian pockets within the 70s and 80s, was all the time going to be judged on one depend. Will this contemporary forged, headlined by Agastya Nanda as Archie, Khushi Kapoor as Betty, and Suhana Khan as Veronica, will be capable to pull off these madly in style characters?
For the virulent anti-Bollywood gang, this trio is nothing however Nepotism Central. I’m right here to say that these youngsters aren’t horrible. If I had to decide on, I’d say Khushi has extra verve than each Agastya and Suhana, however I may even say that the latter did develop on me: she has her father’s dimple, and she or he did handle the arched eyebrow, haughty-miss expression just a few instances.
And the others are simply wonderful, particularly the bright-as-a-tack Dilton (Yuvraj Menda) who represents the form of boy who likes different boys, Mihir Ahuja as Archie’s loyal pal Juggie, and Vedang Raina because the too-smart-by-half Reggie. I additionally appreciated that not one of the youngsters is singled out for particular remedy; all of them get to share display screen house equitably.
As readers who devoured these comics so excessive on all-American values, we all know that it’s easy-paced nostalgia of that period that Zoya Akhtar goes for, and the movie does get in a few of that feeling it its alternative of attire and hair-styles: skirts and pixie bob-cuts and high-waisted pants. And coming-of-age tales by no means get outdated: bear in mind how we scoffed on the ‘high-school’ that Karan Johar’s self-confessed Archies-Riverdale prototype created in his ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, and but fell for the combo, as a result of who might resist the high-wattage appeal of SRK as Archie, Kajol as Betty and Rani as Veronica regardless that they appeared means older than youngsters, and regardless that they have been horribly politically incorrect even on the time?
The opposite factor that the movie will get proper is in the way in which it seems to be, which isn’t a shock coming from Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti and co, whose manufacturing values are all the time top-notch. The lavish Lodge residence, through which Aly Khan performs the large businessman with an eye fixed on the inexperienced lung of Riverdale, the sprawling, leafy Inexperienced Park, the restful book-shop, the newspaper workplace, the hair-dressers, are all spot on. The tough steadiness between the comic-book facet, and the real-life really feel is correct.
ALSO READ | Meet Archie and Gang: Historical past of the all-American comedian e book, now a Netflix movie
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However what isn’t, is the movie itself. Solely a few songs stand out: the opening one has actual lilt. The plot does give us a way of the world on the time — a sit-in on the beloved Inexperienced Park which the townspeople try to avoid wasting from grasping capitalists foreshadows the Woodstock protest, the native newspaper stands up for the correct of free expression, same-sex love is hinted at, and a tune goes ‘Every little thing Is Political’ — however total, the writing isn’t perky sufficient.
The children are all proper. The movie is a bland bauble.
The Archies film forged: Agastya Nanda, Suhana Khan, Khushi Kapoor, Vedang Raina, Mihir Ahuja, Yuvraj Menda, Aditi ‘Dot’ Saigal, Vinay Pathak, Aly Khan, Koel Purie, Tara Sharma
The Archies film director: Zoya Akhtar
The Archies film ranking: 2.5 stars
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