Looking back at Bollywood’s animation films of 2010

Of the 150 films released in Bollywood in the year gone by, eight were animation movies. From just one animation film in 2009, Read More">this is a large jump for the world’s largest film industry. Which was your pick from all these? Bollywood Hungama analyses the animation releases in 2010. Toonpur Ka Superrhero (3D Animation –Read More

Of the 150 films released in Bollywood in the year gone by, eight were animation movies. From just one animation film in 2009, this is a large jump for the world's largest film industry. Which was your pick from all these? Bollywood Hungama analyses the animation releases in 2010.

Toonpur Ka Superrhero (3D Animation - Live Action feature)

Story: Written by Raaghi Bhatnagar and directed by Kireet Khurana, the film features Ajay Devgn and Kajol in lead roles along with a number of animated characters. Toonpur Ka Superrhero is about real life hero Ajay Devgn landing in a fantasy land full of animated characters. He takes on the 'bad' toons to prove his heroism to his kids.

Story-Concept Analysis: A great concept and a novel experiment by incorporating animated characters with the live ones. Though the first half is slow, the second half more than compensates with a fast paced screenplay. Overall, a good attempt!

Animation: Humorous characters and good merging of the live-action footage with the animated characters and background. Performances given by the actors, as they had to perform in absence of any real character by using references, are also worth appreciating.

Voice Over and Lip Sync: The Voice-overs bring the characters to life, but there were a few problems with the lip-syncing.

What's in: Animated characters, Ajay Devgn's performance, the witty dialogues

What's out: Loose first half, few technical glitches

Overall Score: 3/5

Bird Idol (Full-length 3D animated feature) Story: Hummy, a bird from Mumbai, enters a reality show – Bird Idol and goes on to become a rock star with his band. But unlike others who sing bird music, Read More">Hummy likes to belt out pop music. An evil vulture Dhamki attacks him. Script – Concept Analysis: TheRead More

Bird Idol (Full-length 3D animated feature)

Story: Hummy, a bird from Mumbai, enters a reality show - Bird Idol and goes on to become a rock star with his band. But unlike others who sing bird music, Hummy likes to belt out pop music. An evil vulture Dhamki attacks him.

Script - Concept Analysis: The script average. The first half is dreadfully slow riddled with songs but manages to pick up pace in the second half. The audience is spoon-fed throughout the film.

Animation: An extremely poor animation show. Standards of the 3D character models are poor and don't fit the animation. Rigging, Lighting, Texturing are extremely poor.

Voice over and Lip Sync: There is no proper lip- sync.

What's In: Strictly for amateurs

What Out: Excruciatingly long film, poor animation

Overall score: 1.5/5

Bal Hanuman 2 (Full-length 3D animated stereoscopic feature) Story: Child Lord Hanuman is aware of his own power and puts it to proper use by battling demons. Script-Concept Analysis: The script is a letdown with repetitive action scenes. Again, Read More">an attempt to cash into the mythological fame. Animation: An appreciable effort to make a filmRead More

Bal Hanuman 2 (Full-length 3D animated stereoscopic feature)

Story: Child Lord Hanuman is aware of his own power and puts it to proper use by battling demons.

Script-Concept Analysis: The script is a letdown with repetitive action scenes. Again, an attempt to cash into the mythological fame.

Animation: An appreciable effort to make a film in stereoscopy. But with inconsistent direction, the film misses the aesthetics of animation with the arcs and the element of exaggeration missing in most of the animation scenes.

Voice over- Lip Sync: The dubbing is weak with respect to the facial movements and the lip-sync. The characters talk in weird fashion because of disorganized character rigs.

What's in: Attempt to make stereoscopic film

What's out: Story, jerky animation with unappealing character designs

Overall score: 1.5/5

My Friend Ganesha 3 (3D Animation – Live Action feature) Story: Ganya, an orphan, flees from his cruel aunt and uncle to find solace in Lord Ganesha’s temple. Ganya finds Gangu Tai who takes care as his mother, but not for long. Hapless, Read More">Ganya prays for a divine intervention. Script – Concept analysis: The filmRead More

My Friend Ganesha 3 (3D Animation - Live Action feature)

Story: Ganya, an orphan, flees from his cruel aunt and uncle to find solace in Lord Ganesha's temple. Ganya finds Gangu Tai who takes care as his mother, but not for long. Hapless, Ganya prays for a divine intervention.

Script - Concept analysis: The film was an old hat in terms of content - with its hint of Bollywood masala in it, typical fights, dances and the overacted gags. The comedy was slapstick and boring. The film fails to create Lord Ganesha as a strong franchise, the way Percept's Hanuman managed to do.

Animation: The film was a blend of 3D animation and characters with live action. The makers tried hard to push the envelope in order to make film's appeal towards the kids, but fell short. Characters were stiff with dead-pan facial expressions.

Voice over and Lip sync: Disastrous.

What's In: Entertaining in parts

What's Out: The film looks disorganized with the clichéd script.

Overall score: 1/5

So with our analysis and statistics, figures point at Toonpur Ka Superrhero as the Bollywood Hungama's animation film of 2010. But what do you think? Vote for your favorite Indian animated feature in the upcoming Bollywood Hungama's Surfer's Choice Movie Awards.

Lava Kusa -The Twin Warriors (Full-length 2D animated feature) Story: Again a film based on Ramayana, this one depicting the adventures of the twins Lava and Kusa. And what happens when they come face to face with their father, Lord Ram. Story-Concept Analysis: The concept was great, Read More">but too complicated for kids to understand. AnotherRead More

Lava Kusa -The Twin Warriors (Full-length 2D animated feature)

Story: Again a film based on Ramayana, this one depicting the adventures of the twins Lava and Kusa. And what happens when they come face to face with their father, Lord Ram.

Story-Concept Analysis: The concept was great, but too complicated for kids to understand. Another minus was the refined Hindi dialogues which were difficult for the layman to understand.

Animation: The 2D animation was very good, with bright colours adding to its mythological appeal.

Voice Over and Lip Sync: The voice quality is good but lip-sync is off. The reason for the messy lip-sync could be the fact that the film was being dubbed in several other Indian languages.

What's in: Animation

What's out: Language and Lip-sync

Overall Score: 2/5