Movie Review - Jodha Akbar

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Mass Rating - **
Class Rating - ** ½ (For the production values)

After a hard days work, decided to catch the first day second show of the much delayed and super hyped Jodha Akbar….

If Cinema is about Entertainment and sometimes Edutainment, this surely does fail to pass the muster.

Moreover since it is not entirely based on historical facts it cant even be considered as a Documentary on the Life and Lovely Times of Ak(h)ba(a)r.
It’s a short story CUT LONG by the Dir / Editor…
Yet to figure out what’s with our Bollywood directors difficulty in conveying a story within a well defined time slot. Yes, the promo indeed did promise an epic proportion, but I guess they were referring to the raw stock used in the making of this opus……Running time of 3 hrs plus… !! Phew !!!
Okay, it may appear that I am running down the labour of love of Director Ashutosh G …when so many critics in the newspapers are currently raving about the movie, I don’t know about them…but clearly it was not worth the price of the ticket to the multiplex for me.

The movie begins with a disclaimer that it is not based entirely on historical facts (thank you so much…no one would have even blinked if it would have been an Hollywood movie, fictionalizing history, but we are Indians!!) and a Claimer that the birds and animals used in this movie were treated with love & care in the attention of vets present on the set…Hey how about saying some kind words for the audiences about to endure this 3 hr plus saga….??

Story on Marriage of Alliance…(and all this while I was under the impression that marriage is an alliance :-) ) plus few plots and sub plots maketh this Love Story.

There are so many reference points in Hollywood, which avid movie lovers would have seen…Gladiator, Troy, Kingdom Of Heaven, Braveheart, The Last of Mohican to name a recent few…in which epic scale war sequences have been spectacularly picturized .
Yes for a Hindi Cinema , the war sequences were well captured , may be a benchmark…(since competition is only Ramananad Sagar / BR Chopra's TV Serials!!) until some other epic comes in distant future…!!

The few plusses…
• Hrithik as Emperor Akbar, regally and royally breathing life in the character.
• Ash as Princess Jodha, looking ethereally beautiful and very much a princess.
• Dir – Ashutosh daring to be different.
• The initial courtship scenes between the two…
• Hrithik taming the elephant
• Sword fight between Hrithik and Ash to sort out Marital Miscommunication (Glad in today’s time couples don’t have to resort to this to solve similar problems!!)
• Battle scenes by Action Dir - Ravi Dewan
• Dialogues by K P Saxena effortlessly switching between Chaste Urdu and Hindi, keeping the LCM audience in mind.
• Camerawork by Kiran Deohans
• Costume by Neeta Lulla for the lead protagonists
• Grand and Lavish Sets by Nitin Chandrakant Desai (recreating Agra in Karjat)

A R Rahman is not in his best elements with only two songs – Soulful Sufi Qawwali and the beautiful love song Jashn ne bahara (split in two parts) touching the chords. Background Score is again a let down.

The movie did lack in sustaining my interest…

So now to the 40 crore question, is it worth visiting the theatres? Depends entirely on what are your options …Go Make your pick and let me know your take on the same!