'The Archies' Review: A Masala Milkshake at Pop's, Anyone? – The New York Times
Archie and friends get radicalized when their hometown, now conveniently relocated in India, is threatened by company overlords.
Namaste from Riverdale! In “The Archies,” the director Zoya Akhtar transplants the all-American comedian e-book hamlet to India, the place the Anglo-Indian teenager Archie Andrews (Agastya Nanda) is as much as his ordinary methods, relationship each Betty (Khushi Kapoor) and Veronica (Suhana Khan).
Set in 1964, this inessential Bollywood-tinged fantasia is 2 and a half hours of soda retailers, chaste dates, candy-colored petticoats, and athletic musical numbers choreographed to a mixture of modern-ish new tunes and classics like “Wooly Bully.” Akhtar, who wrote the script with Ayesha Devitre Dhillon and Reema Kagti, is fearless in her fanciful reorientation. Why not?
It’s an extravagant stunt perked up by moments of absurdity. Reggie (Vedang Raina) invents beat-boxing; the children applaud a quote from Jean-Luc Godard: “Cinema is reality 24 instances a second.” Largely, nonetheless, it’s rote shtick. Jughead (Mihir Ahuja) chows down on some type of burgers whereas Archie and his girlfriends flirt, struggle and flirt some extra.
Immediately, the main target shifts from how a lot Riverdale hasn’t modified to how a lot it may beneath menace of a company takeover. This wheezy previous save-the-town plot solely holds our curiosity due to our lengthy acquaintance with the characters who at the moment are being radicalized. It’s unusually compelling to observe Archie rework into an anticapitalist activist. “I can’t simply stay my life for kicks,” he sings, “Every thing is politics — hey, hey!”
The forged is tasked solely with wanting chipper and gyrating enthusiastically. The women do a saucy quantity on curler skates; later, Khan’s vampy Veronica lands a again flip. The movie does its darnedest to dazzle from its lavish manufacturing design to its showboating cinematography. For good measure, Akhtar slaps cartoon-style exclamations on the display: “Smack!” “Pow!” and, for Hindi audio system, “Dhishoom!”
The Archies
Not rated. In Hindi and English, with subtitles. Working time: 2 hours 21 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
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