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Weird. How was it? Leave meeting? Ur like the leave meeting is an option. We're like recording in progress, leave meeting goodbye.

I don't want to be part of this, whatever this was, I have no interest in being part of. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a podcast where we take a look at Indian cinema every other week. I am the host of Christashi, the host of this show that's spun off from the Culture Cast, and I am joined by two good friends of mine. You have heard one of them here before and the other one all over the place as well, but they're here together today to join me to talk about a sequel that Jess saw that Maggie hasn't. So you know this will be a little I think you watch this movie without it, so I think we're fine talking about the scary stories we tell podcast.

One of the hosts of that show, Jess bired everyone and frequent guest on scary stories we tell, to the point where you're kind of a host of a part of the show in your own way. Maggie the other Cream Conway. Maybe the ecosystem of host Dolan Dolan on Dolan is just like Dwarf on Dwarfs that were you're saying exactly, yes, it's Tim Kner a guest approach where it's like, where are they gonna put them off? People don't talk about Tim Conway enough. People our age aren't talking about Tim Conway enough.

You know, well they should be. So many problems with the youth today. Youth of today don't know about dwarfon golf. You know a turn This ento the Three Grandpa's podcast before we start, it's the Conway Castank God. I know that we've started out as the three guys and in three years we have become the Three Grandpas.

Yeah. Yeah. The last time Jess and I talked on scary stories we tell was a was Grandpa Cast twenty twenty three, Big big Grandpa energy. So I don't think we're gonna have grandpa energy on this episode because we're going to talk about a sequel to a film that we covered in August of twenty twenty over on the Culture Cast. A little film that you can watch on its own because Maggie did.

It's a it's a sequel to at the time, the most expensive Indian cinema film ever made, not the case anymore. We're talking about a little film called two point zero otherwise known as Entherroon two point oh. So the film is directed by S. Shankar. Just like the first one, it is a sequel to the original, but also somewhat of a standalone film, and it stars once again superstar Rajney Kant in not a double role, but a triple role as once again doctor Vasigrin Chitty and then Chitty three point zero otherwise known as Cutti, a micro robot that well, we'll get to it.

We get to it Bill Bumps. The stars Akshay Kumar as doctor Rajan, a ornithologist who loves birds a lot, and Amy Jackson plays Nila, the the the robot that's not the one that looks like Rajney Kant. That's really what it boils down to, kind of the other robot, the other robot at all, coffee machine, the other one, right, and also returning in a well in a son, at least the son of the original villain from the first movie, doctor Borah's son aptly named Dina Bora in this film, played by Sidhansu Pondei. So the film is all about a new threat that happens to a it's ugly head in India that they think the only way to solve it is to bring in the decommissioned Chitty, because, like we mentioned, this is a sequel.

So at the end of the first film, Chitty is decommissioned and put in a it's kind of like a glass box to just yeah, ray a nice display pace. Yeah that. Yeah, it should be in a museum or it is an a museum, right, it is it is a museum. Yeah. And then, like if I remember correctly, at the end of the first movie, it like jumps into the future like quite a ways, so this may be taking place in between now and then.

It's never made very clear, but this threat is cell phones start disappearing and then once they've disappeared, they start reappearing and killing people in uh shall we say creative ways. So, Maggie, since you're the newcomer to the enthern series, which may or may not continue, who knows, Rogney Kant is still kicking it, still making movies. Thank god. I want to know what you thought about two point zero. I don't know.

Watching all of these actions sequences really made me wish that in war heroes wore Heeli's because I think those landings are just that was the best part of the film, was just the skateaway landings. But it was a lot. Yes, you know, being a big fan of RoboCop, I am always down for robot crime fighting. It's just this had a lot of elements going for it, and none of them seemed to lay What about you, Jess, as you shake your head, as you shake your perfectly cloffed hair raj Khan style. Yeah, this, given that I saw the movie before, this movie, this movie is nothing like that.

Hell and it's no, it's not for the better. It's not that it's a different movie for the better. I thought it was almost unbearable to watch. I'm not gonna say I'm surprised by either of y'all sentiments. I mean, this is a lot, and it's not just a lot, but it seems like a lot with not a whole lot of purpose in a lot of ways.

And and you know, I think to your point, you know, Jess, with that first movie, the first movie has a like an emotional core at the center of it. Because Ashwarya Rai and Rajni Khan have a really good chemistry between the two of them. There is none of that here. Now Amy's interacted Amy Jackson in this movie is again, I don't think it has anything to do with her. Frankly, I think the script just doesn't understand what to do with her character and so it effectively does nothing at all.

And so it is a This is a Rajney Khank vehicle. This is a movie for Rosney Kant. It is his movie more or less all the way through. Aside from the our long you know, fucking flashback we get with Akshay Kumar's character, which may be the best part of this movie. It's like this weird, really kind of melancholy story sandwiched in between more two point zero interron craziness amped up even higher.

Right well, it was the only level of like character development that we got in any of the means, and it just happens, you know, the guy you're not supposed to be like rooting for it right there. So but I feel like that's the point of them. I feel like the point of the movie though in a weird way, and get the kind of do this in some other Indian cinema that I've seen something like Doom or Doom two or even Doom three, it's like it's less about our heroes and more about the villain. And I mean, I do appreciate that, but the balance here is all off because, like you mentioned, Maggie, there's no character development for our hero. It's like we've got him from the last movie as is and that's all you need to know.

And yeah, we're gonna give, you know, almost a literal third of this movie to another character to talk about why he is the way he is and THEMRD Sanctuary and why he's an ornithologist, and I mean they even start with the day I was born. And it's like, oh my god, like we're going that far back with this character, and it it almost makes you, by the end of the movie go, you know, if if doctor Rajan succeeded, I'm not sure it'd be the end of the world. Like yeah, like he's he's humanized so much more than our hero is. You kind of can't help but feel bad for him. And obviously that was the point of this entire like extended flashback, but like he almost ends up seeming like the hero of the piece, even though he's so clearly not meant Bengo, Right, you guys, are talking about how much chemistry the ogs had, where it's like, ah, that would be sick if they had that energy on the other end, because that's what makes these fight scene super like engaging.

There's something at risk, there's a whole backstory that you're aware of, and when they're fighting each other, it needs to be like that can that like competition of energy and purpose and what it means for them to win. This one didn't quite have that punch with any of the action sequences. It was mostly a spectacle with no like power buffooning their punch. So that's always very frustrating, especially when they take the time to give a good backstory but only to one half of the equation they were supposed to be waiting. It's interesting because it feels to me that this movie seems like it was two movies.

Yeah, at one time that it was a movie about the ornithologists and the cell phones and the you know, like an environmental piece movie about that, and then they wanted to do a two point zero sequel and somehow crammed this that into this movie. Because Chitty is like a non entity really for a good percentage of this movie, right, which is you know, if we're talking about the chemistry you know from the original that has to do with Chitty and everything around the creation of it, and we're talking about the chemistry with effectively rational Coon and himself, right right, but like literally literally that's it. But even that, even that in this movie is missing, like there is not even a connection between them, and it's the same guy, and it feels very I don't know, it feels very stilted, and like I said, it seems like it wasn't supposed to be a part of this movie.

And I'm sure that that's not true, but that's just how it comes off as we go along, especially since we spend so much time in the extended flashback with the doctor and learning all of this stuff about him. We don't even get to the two point oh aspect until well into the movie, and at that point they don't do anything to like connect Chitty and like to really meld these stories and the way other movies we've watched for this podcast do, because they all do the very extended flashbacks about people and you know, things that kind of take you away from the main lot for a long time. Casey and G had an hour long opening essentially flashback, right, And that's fine. But it's fine when it works when you can meld and bring the characters all back together in a really fluid way and that they all connect with each other.

But in this it never It just kind of seems like we get out of that extended flashback and then boom, we're in a kind of different movie and we're just supposed to run with it. Well, and I think to your point, I mean you mentioned the first movie. I think the thing about the first movie that that did work so well. Obviously, Ashwar Rai and Rajen khanp have great chemistry both as doctor Besigrin and as Chitty the Robot, because like you said it, it's effectively two performances in that movie. Technically, I mean you can even say three almost because you have the good Chitty and bad Hitty.

And in this movie there again it's like in the last movie where good Chitty disappears after a while because they bring back the two point over, which is in the last movie, the evil version of Chitty that is now you know, Terminator Judgment Day style, he's the good guy again yea, or for the first time he's the good guy, or he's more he is being perceived as the good guy by everybody, because again I'm sure his perception was he was the hero of the Last Piece anyways. But it's just it didn't start out as a movie that didn't have Chitty in it. It was an entthron sequel. But to your point, just it feels so disappointing that I almost wish it wasn't it Just like everything with Chitty feels like an afterthaw.

It to the point was like, who do we get to fight this fillin? I mean, I guess we have Chitty, so we could just do a sequel and that movie. I mean, that's not the movie wasn't successful. We both know, we all know that movie was successful. It made a ton of money.

But like this, if the point of this movie was to make a sequel to the last movie, it ends up being more about another character who goes nowhere else but in this movie, and then the character that we are expecting to know and learn more about and maybe see another dimension to is sidelined, which again, it could have worked. It just doesn't here right man. The well, It's like hell rais are like mid mid run for that where it's like, uh, Hellraiser Inferno, where it's like, yeah, well we had a different script and then we just kind of podged it together. How do we fit centobites in this? All right, let's go right, But again, like that's you know, that's not actually what happened here.

But because of the way this movie feels so disjointed, it does feel that because like at some point you're just like and oh, yeah, we still got Hitty, so we should just do that, and they're like, I guess, like, do you guys not remember the I mean, you have characters in this movie going like, do you guys don't remember the last time this happened? Like he's locked up for reason. We're not using him for a reason, right, because he's a killer fucking robot, like, and it doesn't really become really an issue, right, Well, the other threat is worse, so bring the killer robot backs, right, And you know, I mean, obviously this movie exists in a different time than the first one did because in this movie, you'll notice towards the end when we have this giant set piece in a football stadium.

Yeah, they take great pains to show Chitty being very careful to save people, which feels very much in a Postman of Steel superhero world, where it's like, we have to show the hero saving people because we don't want anyone to be like, well, look at all those buildings that got destroyed, all those people he didn't save, and there it's like, all right, we got to show him going and grabbing people and setting him down and being safe about it. It's like, oh, come on, I know you swung too far. In the other direction is essentially what's happened here, because like at the front, I mean, there isn't really the villain is the hero, Like, yeah, you made a machine of yourself that's now the super powered being and you are effectively just having It's a Frankenstein monster situation right exactly, which is which is why that movie works so well, because it draws on things that we're used to and does something with them that feel unique to Indian cinema.

And I you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that I've seen the things that this movie is presenting. A giant bird made out of cell phones is a is an interesting image to see on screen, and it's novel and unique and it feels fresh. However, nothing ends up coming up no, and honestly, I wish the audio design were just a little bit better on it. That's like the one thing I hate, like the friggin Airsmr nonsense and that felt like you just a crunchy fan. Oh it means like he took the microphone through it in a blender with like strapnel in it, and that's just more like it's very grating, very creative.

I love the thought, I really love the thought, but it's just if the audio were a bit more clean, it'd be it'd be a little bit easier to get through those scenes because they do kind of do the weird like how are we going to kill this person in a room with a shitload of cell phones? And I mean they go both so the wall on creativity for like, oh it like shreds them apart and whatever. But it's just these see are too long to have that screaming metallic it's a it's a lot, I mean, and I understand now when y'all said like it's it's a little much like it feels intentionally abrasive because again, like it is, but it's ros too right, But it's an odd joy. Why would you treat you too much? Why would you treat your audience that way in a way, right, you couldn't have sat in the audio well, and you could have sat in the audio bay had been like I'm hearing this and this is not annoying, Like uh, yeah, it's yes, it actually is annoying, and you know, surround it, that's for sure.

It feels surrounded by a bunch of cell phones attacking you right just too long, you know, sound design aside, The way that they use the cell phones in this movie is creative. I've never seen someone exploded from the inside out by cell phones, Like I didn't know. And that's the thing that like, in a lot of ways, the first like forty five minutes of this movie is almost like horror movie adjacent. Even it feels more like a horror movie than it does a I guess a sci fi robot movie. And that's the thing like this this movie doesn't know what it wants to be.

The first movie knew exactly what it wanted to be, to the point where, like you mentioned, Jess, it really is just the Frankenstein story just being told with with robots instead of dead bodies. And you know, again like whatever, you can transpose this old story into a new version and get away with is what you're gonna ultimately do, because again, like that story is so good. There's a reason it's been done a million times. But what they're using as their inspiration here, I could not tell you. Just like, yeah, I racked my brain for other movies that are like this one, and really the one that came to mind is Terminator, because like that's the feel at the end of the movie.

It's like we're gonna get him back and he's gonna come and help us out now even though he was a bad guy. Like the only thing I could goes like Terminator and or Eye Robot. But like, oh when you when did this movie come out? You came on twenty eighteen, twenty eight, Yeah, so I mean, I mean there's obviously the strong environmentalism aspect theme of this movie, was there. I don't know anything about you know, India and their cell phone tower you know, sure, however many they have them, if they have too many, if they are starting to impede on like wildlife and things like that, which I'm sure they are and they are everywhere, But was that a big thing, like was there like was there a big like commute you know, population uprise or anger about this particular subject that would cause the story to come upon us.

It. I couldn't find anything about it because again, like you like you're asking, it seems like such a specific thing. Yeah, like yeah, like and this is a terrible example in a lot of ways, but it makes sense like Steven Segall's uh was it not fired down below on deadly ground? It's like, Oh, he's gonna he's an EPA agent and he's gonna go and he's that ep agent I guess like oil drilling, wildcat or some shit. He's like and it's all about this like weird environmental message that's like this seems oddly specific in a way that you are the one who is motivated by less the world wrint large, like again the fact that the cell phones, like the thing with cell phones and birds, it seems personal.

Yeah, it seems like something's really upset about this. So I mean fun So yeah, I don't know, Like I was just wondering, I'll you have anybody to come across anything, you know that maybe had been a big point of you know, cultural issue or you know, I means with pollution is a big deal in India, but like, that's not the kind of pollution they're talking about. This is from a different guy, a like effectively audio pollution, like like noise pollution and radio waves that fuck with numbers and make them crazy. Yeah. I'm just impressed that for uh, I mean, just coming from a Western perspective, considering its cell phone towers, bird deaths and people losing their phones all at once and not knowing what to do.

It's like it didn't go down any predictable route. I'll give them that because it's like, oh, it's probably like the five G scare, and it's like no, no, really, it's like, oh, people are on their cell phone morality round. It's like, no, not really, It's like, oh, oh right then, yeah, is it trying to make a statement on like people are on their phones? No, it's not doing that cell phones kill birds? Yeah, there you go.

What the cell phone becomes the bird? I get, Yeah, and then it's the one doing the killing. It is reborn. And you know, I think it is kind of unfortunate that the rest of the movie doesn't live up to the set pieces, because the set pieces are good, they are entertaining, they're well done, and you know, I've seen quality levels of CGI across all kinds of cinema, both Indian and Western, like we all have. And it's not bad for twenty eighteen, and it's not bad for twenty twenty three either.

It's perfectly fine for the most part, right, But I mean it is just like towards the end of the movie, it's an action set piece for like an hour, is what it feels like, and it's just an assault on the sense. Yeah, that's that's me. The other thing with the latter half of this movie is that once Shitty does become involved, it does just feel like it's fight after fight after fight after fight, and it's a lot of quick cut, hard cuts, you know, just very disorienting to watch. And it goes on consecutive leaves for a long time with very minimal breaks in between of anything else happening. And the little things that are happening in between, again, like we've said, aren't that interesting because the characters have zero chemistry with each other at all, if they're even given time to interact to begain with, Like, yeah, Amy Jackson and Rogney cont have very little chemistry, and I think they realize that pretty quickly in because she's not in the movie a whole lot, like, not in the way I swar was in the first film.

And look, I mean they kind of YadA YadA Eshwari rai in this movie. They're like she's calling in, Like where is she this whole time? Like because yeah, she calls in at one point, which seems like the movie literally YadA YadA and her out of the film. But like she would see on the news that doctor v. Siegerin is like in trouble and in harm's way, and oh, here's chanced back this robot that tried to fucking kill me a couple of years ago, like and all these would be things that the character from the last movie would have an issue with.

But uh, when are you coming home for dinner? Like okay, all right, am I. And look it's a voice cameo. She's not even in the movie, but that is as it is her and they are I guess they're married, and he's still just he's still the same character from the last movie. It's just so strange.

It's, you know, reading about the movie, they wanted it to be a sequel to the original, but they also wanted to be a standalone that you could watch without having seen the last movie, which like that doesn't work. No, Now, when you have recurring characters, you are supposed to be the same character, right there are been approaching. Yeah, you're right, he just resets right at the like he didn't grow or learn evidently much from our last experience with Chitty. And yeah, like you said, his wife would be pretty damn upset. I would think realistically, she almost got got and Rajny Khan's character of the adoptor of a Siegrin is so quick to suggest Chitty.

He's just like, Chitty's the answer, Like that's what's going to fix this. It's like, dude, you have not changed as a character. Like it's such a shame, because the character by the end of the last movie, you would think he's understood the importance of maybe being a little bit more cautious around technology, maybe being more interested in the people around him. But no, it's like we're just right back where we were, to the point where he's created a robotic female assistant who's not his assistance from the last movie, who added some comedic the like some comedic relief. They're not even here now, it's just another robot so he's just completely isolated himself from reality.

It's so strange because it doesn't even feel like the same character. It's not the same character this in a lot of ways, like this should have just been something else. Yeah, different different person, different scientists or whatever, and just different robot or I don't want to make an aliens, I don't know, just do something it didn't need to be. Instead of trying cramming this movie into yeah, into this universe where it doesn't belong, right, I would just take the flashback as the movie because at that raad like a lot of the action sequences, they had moments where the flow is pretty good, but coming from a kung fu background where it's like I was die heard over there that because of the choreography, and that's kind of like what really sells it, especially in some like moral fight to the end type of thing.

And it's like it didn't se like the action sequences really took the time to kind of develop how this fight was gonna go. There's one things that just go into a fight that they didn't really skim on too much, especially with the editing, Like you're mentioning Jess, it's very disoriented you're gonna be heard the read, which is not good when we're talking action. Like that's a complaint that a lot of viewers, myself and y'all, I think, would agree with. Like a there was a trend for a while in Western cinema where it was a lot of quick cuts and whiplage granetics editing is what they would call it, but I would call it disorienting for the most part because it's hard to I mean, not everybody's Paul green Grass like, it's just that I'm sorry, not everybody is.

But there are going to be plenty of people that will try to do that because it was and is a successful style and way of editing action. But it's not easy to I mean, editing actions not easy. Blocking out an action scene is not easy, but making it look interesting and exciting is something that happens in the editing day, less out on the set because again, like it's it all, it all comes out in the wash. But this really needed a firmer hand and a better sense of flow because I think for me, the best set piece is the end of the movie, but that's only because it feels like I just am ready for them to throw everything at the screen and that's kind of where we are at the end of the movie, and I appreciate that at least it feels like the film does ramp up in a I guess in a reasonable or believable way, and by the end of it it feels like there are there are some stakes.

It's just we're not invested in the characters. That's the problem, right, I'm more invested in the people in the stadium not getting vaporized than it is. There's a terrible way to go in reality, and that's and that's the other thing. The Sudhan Shu Pondi character, the son of the doctor from the last movie who was the bad guy, kind of is more the hero than anybody else. I mean, he turns at the end, but like he's the one who's like, hey, Chitty's a bad idea, Like don't don't release him again.

He saw what he did before, and like he pays for it because he you know, he lets the doctor free obviously to go on his rampage at the end of the movie, which he then pays for by big fucking vaporized and a pretty pretty terrible way to go. I feel like, in front of like an entire state of where the people just oh yeah, getting vaporized down to nothing. But he ends, like you get more of a sense of his character than you do most of the characters in the movie other than the other villain of it. Yeah, it's at least readable motivation for why the character is doing what he's doing right, as opposed to especially coming at it from like a standalon side, like they were gunning for, Like I had more understand Like I understood the characters a lot more in the villain context than in the hero context because they just kind of relied on it fame of it where it's like, oh, you get it, and it's like yeah, I mean because it's a basic concept, but saring you guys talk about some of the backgrounds from like the first Oh wow, yeah, that's even more of a terrible idea than I thought it would.

You said, well, and that's a surprising thing is that it feels like they said, well, we want it to be a standalone movie but also a sequel. It's like they forgot that the standalone part, like they should have done more with and like this should have just honestly, like I don't know if it would have fixed everything, But I think it would have fixed some of the things we're talking about, at least on the Razney Kant side by having as Warri Ryan, just having more humans that Raji Kant, the surrounding himself with that aren't just people in the government, because that's what it ends up being. It's either he's surrounding himself with robots, either Chitty or Neila and then a bunch of guys or yeah, those things, or he's surrounding himself with all these like scientists and military people.

There's no interactions he has with like normal people like he did with Ashwari Rai. And that was the best part of the last movie for me. Wasn't the action at the end of the movie. It was Ashwari Raye and Chitty interacting and having their you know, chitty Chitty robo song and all of that was the best part of the last movie because it was super I don't know, it's just super wholesome watching her go out with him and him kind of protecting her as her protector assigned to her by the doctor. But like now it's just like who cares.

He's just he's just another weapon to fight to fight a bad a bad guy and that's it. He's right, that's it. How are we supposed to care about this character in this movie? Right, because, like you said, mag if you've never seen in the first one, like and they're expecting you to understand the character, all you understand that is is that he's a badass robot. That's it.

That's literally all they tell you. Well, and you know, I mean I get it from the aspect of that he is a robot. Therefore he cannot learn from any experiences and theory, you know, depending on what type of robot he is. But and you know, what we see in the first one, and you know, like you said, Chris, have the first one ends we kind of, you know, to believe that he is you know, a pretty I mean, he is a pretty sophisticated fucking robot. So yeah, much like every other robot movie ever, he has an AI and he is capable of learning, you know, things over time.

And then we basically just do a hard reset, which I guess makes sense if you're going to be in a display case for however the fuck long he's in that case. But again, like we said, Rajcha Khan is just now surrounding himself all by robots, all robots that do everything for him and his assistant robot is that's a stop much real, real, great character read out. In a lot of ways, it feels like the joke from Rick and Morty, what do you do you pass the butter? That's what it feels like with her character. It's like, what do you do you assist me in doing my stuff?

It's like, okay, great, and then they try to like pass off at the end of the movie that Chitty and her should totally be falling in love, and it's like, this doesn't feel earned out, This doesn't even like just just let let it go, like because here's the thing. Twenty thirty is where the end of the first movie is in the future. This movie is never clear with what time place is taking place during because again, they broke themselves into a corner that they can't get out of now. So in this movie they literally just fucking ignore the last they like straight up because he is there. I don't think that Chitty is willingly going to go just jump into the case and deactivate himself.

That's not the way this movie ends. This movie ends with him and Nila going off to do whatever. But like, ultimately they need to be deactivated because they're fucking there. They are the most sophisticated robots out there, and you saw what happened in the first movie. If they get a wild hair up there, ass, why would you let them just walk around freely?

Do we learn nothing from this first movie? I do. I just don't understand. It's like it didn't happen really other than doctored, right, that's my point, Like Rajik should have been locked up at the end of the first movie. Like even if the robots saved everything, Like, dude, is still your creation.

You still did this. You need to be held accountable, Like this could have picked up after he you know, maybe got on a drill or whatever, and then maybe that's why he's you know, more hardened and then creates all the robots sets around himself because fuck everybody. And we have a character somewhere, but we don't. We have just you know, surface level. You're the mad scientist, you're kind of the mad scientist character.

You're the all powerfu robot character. You're the kind of maybe love interesting And they do the same thing that they did from the first movie, where it's like you haven't been home in eight thousand days type thing, and they do the same thing. It's like, how is how is this character not just the same character? How is this not just a reboot? Really?

Like, yeah, I mean we talk about movies over on the culture cast lot that are like soft reboots or you know, marimakes or requills and stuff, and you know, like Jurassic World. Right, it's its own movie, but it is a sequel to Jurassic Park because, you know, maybe even a little ham fistedly, they show you all the Jurassic Park stuff halfway through the movie. Here's the visitor center, and here's the car, and here's the goggles. It's like, yeah, that's a lot. And that's not particularly well done either, but at least I get the sense that this takes place in the same world that other things I have frame of reference for did happen, and those events are referenced and given the weight and importance that they're at least I'm being led to believe were from the last movie.

In Jurassic World, they don't go, yeah, that Jurassic Park, that was a shame. All Right, We're gonna open up Jurassic World. It's like I mean, it is a little YadA YadA in Jurassic World why they're reopening the park. But at the same time, dumb rich, fuck's gonna be dumb. It wasn't about to say, and so believes right in this not my Dinosaur, It's fine.

Right in this movie, it's like there is no universe where anybody would be like, yes, let the robot that killed people in the first movie out to go and fight another robot that's only killing like one or two people, and that's the other The government would be like absolutely not. I like to believe just everybody. Yeah, there's no It feels like this movie is gaslighting us into believing the other one doesn't like in a in a really unfortunate way, because I think as much as maybe the first movie has its problems, it's a much better movie than this one. Yeah, it's more enjoyable to watch, and it's and look this I would contend this movie is an action movie. That movie was not an action movie.

It had action comedies. Yeah, it's like a romantic comedy. It was like what if bi centennial man kicked ass? Like I mean that's yeah in a lot of ways, Like I have a hard time describing the first movie without saying it's a bi centennial man the Terminator and I Robot, Like it's kind of all of that mixed together, but still that would be selling it short. Like this is not a goofy moment, right, like fun light moments, Like the first hour of that movie is not there's like no action, it's just the making of Chitty, the training of Chitty.

What does it mean to how have a robot that looks like you? All of those are things that are answered in the first hour of that movie. In this movie, it's like, well, you know Chitty, but you don't know Chitty, and it's like wait, wait what, Like why not just do something else? Then you know Chitty, But he's not really gonna act. We're not gonna have any of those cute light eleveny moments with him.

He's basically just a robot, like King Sass now right. It's like that wasn't what was successful for me in the first movie. And look, I mean I mean again, like there are plenty of Indian cinema films that the sequel pivots. Hard Koy Milgaya is a movie with Prithique Roshan where he plays essentially a Forrest Gump style character who in the next movie his son is a straight up fucking superhero. So again, genre pivots aren't that uncommon, but that's not what this is.

This is a complete, like you said, just gaslighting. It's like the first movie never happened. It's like, you know, I could actually take that to the bank if this movie were good, I wouldn't care. If this movie were good, it wouldn't matter that they got rid of the first movie because they gave me something entertaining to watch for the second one. This movie is really diminishing returns because I guess all they took away from the first movie was they liked the action.

Yeah, right, like and really that's it. Like you said, it's an action movie, but it's not any specific Like it's an action movie and also a superhero movie and also not at all a comedy or you know, romantic movie in the slightest, so in genre of pivots, but genre pivots into two very different genres, and it doesn't really commit to either one. Because the first half of this movie, like we talked about, is pretty gory. Right, it's a horror movie. It's kind of a Yeah, it's kind of a horror movie at the beginning, and then it just beer, you know, after the bird robot is formed, it becomes just an action movie.

But at that point it's in an action movie, right, there's generally like there's a goal, like the action is coming from, you're on a mission, You're on this, You're on the conflict is where the action really comes from. But this is just there's an evil guy and we gotta kill his bird monster, and we don't know what his deal is, Like it's not even like nobody, like we the audience know what his deal is, but the characters in the world don't know what his deal is, so they don't know how to They don't know how to address it. They don't know how to handle it, they don't know what to do with it. And that in and of itself is a problem because actually Kumar is probably the best part of this movie as as as as the uh as the revenging ornithologist.

He's really sympathetic. I mean, even though he's been crazy, like, he's a sympathetic character who you feel for. And again, they rightfully humanize him, but I think they humanize him to the point where you kind of just want him to roast Hitty and be done with it. And it's like, you know what, you're probably right, like cell phones do suck, so fuck it, like you have your wing like right. So it's really strange that it's very Batman like the cell phone under the skin thing was one of those moments.

But it's like an Onswald Coddle Lot meets Poison type of villains either Shin. It's interesting. It was just something that patched in my head. I was watching where it's like, yeah, this just kind of plays out like a Batman episode, just a very long one, right, And that's why I like it. Feel it doesn't feel like really it decided on anything, like it feels like it more wants to be a superhero vibe.

Yeah, but Shitty never really becomes a superhero. He's just a robot, I mean, like a superhero type of way, like he's a robot of anything. The Bird Monster and everything is the more superhero super villainie type, which is why are remindly true and the and the villain's you know, story is often somehow makes them somewhat sympathetic, like the Joker, like Poison Ivy, like doctor Free Sir Doctor names who coincidentally played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Batman versus Robin Right. Arnold Schwarzenegger almost played the Actsha Kumar part in this movie, which Wow, would have made this movie actually fucking insane. I would have liked to see that, just like I, you know, I think that the world wouldn't be ready for that, but at the same time, like it totally would have been because Schwarzenegger would be in that Man in the Iron Mask movie like what a year or two ago, where he's in it for fucking five minutes, Like, look, I'm all four actors in this country going and working elsewhere and getting paid as such to work there because of your notoriety.

He and yeah, I mean if the look actually Kumar in this movie is great and he looks like a human bird when he's on screen, which is a lot of fun, and the character designed for him is just bad shit insane, like if it had been Schwarzenegger, like, oh my god, just like I don't. I think I think people here would know this movie a lot more than than any one of us would have liked to have admitted. If Schwarzenegger had been in this movie. Oh yeah, right, imagine Schwarzenegger's first Indian cinema movie. Yeah, where he plays a bird man.

I know where he's a bird man, right, because like there's no way getting around that, like's not gonna change the script. Love it. God, that would really have been something could be the biggest f like how would it make any sense? Like no goods? Like what the WHI why is this guy here?

Yeah? Yeah, actually Kumar, I don't he looks you know, like he belongs in this movie. Schwarzenegger would be about as out of places as he is in Jingle all the way. Sir, Yes, you know that this is not the kind of movie you should be making. But you know what, Look, I can't.

I wish it had happened. I wish it had happened one day. It would be great. That's an alternate universe I which had happened. That's the reason even wanted to get involved, is because the first movie made so much money.

I mean, the first movie was when it came out the highest grossing Indian cinema film of all time, it's not anymore, and it was the most expensive movie. So you know, there you go. I mean it being the most expensive movie of all time in India seeing the the I get again. The first movie was well received, like you know, and this movie was also well received, which I kind of find to be surprising. Yeah, but I mean, I guess it's kind of one of those things where it's like it's a well known impece, so why wouldn't people check it out.

It's kind of almost like a curiosity stake as opposed to anything else. Yeah, but the critics, the critics are, you know, the critics are more just like it's it. They're focused on Akshay Kumar's performance, which I get, yeah, and the direction of them. But yeah, I you know, after having watched this movie two times now, I'm I feel like I don't ever need to revisit this movie. Not really, No, like that's not the case for a lot of Indian cinema.

I rewatch these movies often, and this is just like, after watching it the second time, I was like, I, you know, by the end of this movie, I just I would rather rewatch the first one because the first one's actually fun in a way that resonates with me, versus this one that just feels like this doesn't feel special the way the first one now, and it's not because oh it's the sequel and therefore it would never feel special. It's more just like it doesn't feel special because it just feels kind of like everything else I've seen. Even if there are some cool, stylistically interesting things, it feels in a lot of ways like the worst example of the stuff Marvel is putting out. I can see where they don't remember the previous stuff at all.

It doesn't matter if you do either, But here we're gonna tell you a story, and by the end of the movie the characters may not even seem like the characters that you know. And there you go, like, I love Thor Ragnarok as much as the next person, But that conceit works in that movie's favor because Thor fucking sucked as a character up unto that point. If Thor had been a good character and they had changed him for the worst, it would have been a similar situation to this, because by the end of the first movie is a compelling character. I mean, his line at the end of the movie is you know what the little girl asked him, like, why did they take you apart? And he was like, because I started thinking for myself and it's like, that's an interesting spot to leave your character in this movie.

It's like what blow shit up? Fuck it? Yeah? And wheeling away? Yeah, well, you know these are the best part dude.

I don't think any more for myself, I guess, but right, but I'm just a weapon. I'm just a weapon of the government. So and that's just like that. That's We've seen that story a thousand times, a thousand different ways, and now we've seen it this way and it's just okay, Like I my big takeaway from this movie is I would like to see more films with Akshay Kumar because he if anything, he shows up. I'm not saying Rajeri doesn't show up.

But they gave Akshay Kumar the bulk of the movie, like really, they're like, here, this is your movie more or less. Like the movie opens with him like going and committing suicide, like it should be clear whose movie this is from the opening, and the movie kind of telegraphs that to us. It's just honestly, if that were the case, I wish they had given him more, just like give Chitty even less. Because in something like Doom three, which Richard and I watched, the first Doom movie is the focus are our main characters. The second movie is the focus is our main characters from the first movie.

And then in the third movie, the main characters that have been there the whole time come back and they're like supporting characters to the villain played by Amir Cod. So it's like, it's okay to do that other people have. You can start to earn it now, right, and you also have to have some confidence that the audience is going to understand the journey you're going on in the story you're trying to tell, and don't pull up at the last second, because that's what this feels like it. They should have just committed to Akha Kumar's character and given him the bulk majority of this film, like two thirds of the movie, and then by the end of it, we want to see him get defeated by Chitty because we've seen his journey go from being a you know, ornithologist who has a baby bird cry on him in his prim and he comes back to life, which is just I mean again, like things you don't think you're ever gonna see, but yet here we are.

And then and then you can follow his journey of transitioning into this villain who, by the end of it is vapor is willing to vaporize a stadium full of people seeing that journey would be interesting in watching Chitty kind of being the fly and the ointment and you know Chitty will get the upper hand in the end. Would have been an interesting way to tell the story better. And instead it's like, no, no, no, you guys don't understand, like Chitty is also part of this. It's like, at this point unless you do something with this character, just don't feature him as a main character, if not the main character of the right because I mean, if actually Kamar just been the hero quote of the piece, I think this would have worked better.

I think this would have been more interesting and felt a little bit more novel and more fresh at the movie instead of just doing kind of the same thing the first movie did, but with a villain, an exterior villain this time not the same guy. Yeah, it would have been I think a little. It would have been a little bit more successful. It still would have had the problems it has, but Raji Kant and Amy Jackson would have been on screen a whole hell of a lot less just by necessity alone, exactly. You know, it's too bad, it really is, because that first movie is a lot of fun and this one's just not like it.

It's fun in spurts, but those spurts don't make up for a lot of just like wheel spinning. Yeah, it's too long of a feature to be floundering half as much as right, it's one hundred and forty seven minutes. This isn't a short film by any stretch of the imagination. It also kind of kills me that this is like, you know, I guess all sequels could art you can say are unnecessary, but some sequels are. You know, the first one lends itself to being a continued story, right, the first one doesn't have to be.

This one didn't have to be. There was nothing at the end of it that like really really made it, that was like, you need to bring these characters back to brisolve this issue. It could have been left. So I don't, I just I don't I agree. I don't understand what the call was for this on it, Like, why why was this the direction?

Why did you need to make another chitty movie? Why couldn't it just be some other you know, could have been any insert yeah, yeah, Answert character here, like it could be anything like and realistically, did it need to have to be a superhero fighting the robot bird like it could have been just like a normal character played by any Indian actor. Like it would have been cooler if like Chitty was persuaded and like joined the evil side dellate the board, and then Rasna Khan has to you know, be a person again, right and be like, oh no, instead they do, and that this was a terrible idea. Maybe I need to actually learn as a person this time. But no, instead it's I'm gonna I'm gonna do the whole let me sacrifice myself thing.

Because then if if you if we'd let you know, okay, Chitty gets persuaded by the evil bird monster, that means, okay, yes, we're picking up from the last movie where Chitty had effectively updated for lack of a better term of like understanding thinking. And therefore persuasion would be a thing that could happen to something. And if you're already a super massive, powerful entity who did some pretty bad shit in your past, you could be easily pulled into that world and it would have blended the stories better. I don't know, anything, like just any type of blending would have been better than feeling like it just got shoehorned right into this the middle of the movie. Well, and and I mean I think that that is kind of for me, the biggest takeaway here.

It's just, you know, I've talked about this before that sequels in Indian cinema were not a thing. I mean, there was not a sequel to DDLJ. There'skuchota Hi, there's k three G. But those are actors playing different characters. It's just the same actors are being cast because they have charisma with one another, but they're not right playing the same characters.

And it seems like that sentiment kind of transferred here when it should have been something that should have been ignored because right, you know, yes, Luke Skywalker shows up in The Mandalorian, and he shows up in other things, but that is a consistent character being more or less portrayed the same way he's portrayed everywhere in this movie. They do not feel like characters from the last movie. And if you're gonna do this, even if you want it to be stand alone, even if you want it to be perceived as on its own, without any connection to the previous movie, especially, Yeah, like you really have to make sure that the characters are well defined or we can understand who they were from the last movie without you having to spend forty five minutes explaining that, because then it's like, why not just make this a fucking sequel then, But they don't.

They don't do either here, they do both or neither, Like I can't tell if it's they're doing neither or they're just like it's hard to tell because nothing is successful with rajniy Khan's character in the movie. And I can't tell they're trying too hard or not trying enough, because nothing is successful with anything outside of the act Shay Kumar stuff for me. Yeah, even the musical numbers aren't that memorable. Oh my god, which is such a shame, Which is such a usually highlight it because I'm just kind of looking forward to what ridiculous sons they were going to throw at me in something that had cell phone variants. It doesn't, right, you get nothing, very few.

You get one at the end, which ends up being it's I mean again, it's not like it's it's not like the song's not catchy. It's just like it's fine, like but there's like that's it for the most part. Like the one at the end I think is the most memorable because it's also the most interesting to look at, Like there's a lot of weird things going on that you can kind of be amazed by, I guess, I mean again, like by the end of this movie, you're just kind of exhausted. Yeah, and that's ever good. Forty five minutes into this movie, I was exhausted.

Just not a good feeling as an audience to be exhausted with a movie like that's not where if you're listening to this and you're a person who is susceptible to sensory overload, probably not with this one. Check out the last movie, especially sound No watch last one. Last One's fine, the last one is it to half an hour? My favorite. It's not my favorite of the you know, the the Bollywood movies that we watched together, but it's by a bar not my least favorite.

That's probably this one. Now it might be, And that's a shame because I mean, all the pieces are here, there are no I mean again, Amy Jackson, I have not seen in anything else, so I can't comment on her as in her But she's not good here, not that she's given anything to do other than look good in that suit, but I mean right with which she does, like again that there's there's no denying that, but like that can't be enough. But that is seemingly where they're hanging their hat is like she's good looking and that's it. And look, Katrina keff get got fucking used the same way in Thugs of Hindos onwards, like she's gonna do a song and that's it. And it's like, Okay, I get it.

That's a cameo. This it's like she's part of the movie. You guys know that, right, Like she's not a cameo. She is a character who, by the end of the movie, we're supposed to believe her and Hitty are gonna go off together. And since Jess, you did see the first movie as I did, the way the first movie ends, I would take it over the way this movie, like the ending of the first movie feels like, like you said, a definitive, like do we need anything else here?

It's like it's like a joke the gang. Oh here's a little baby robot? What why? Why is his cell phone? His grandson, Like what, no, what I don't Yeah, it makes no sense, Like the way the first movie ended, it felt like there's no more story here that needs to be told, Like I get it, Like the character of Chitty has come on a journey, right, But here we are with doctor just going, hey, guys, do you guys remember the killer robot.

Let's let's get him out of prison. It turns out we just needed a bird monster. Turns out he wasn't a big enough threat. We need to have him fight the bigger threat. It's like, Okay, I mean I get it, but why don't yeah, don't.

Realistically, would this have worked better if Chitty hadn't been the robot and Chitty had helped make the next version of him? And that's what it was, like, would that have worked? I can't even like or is this movie just kind of anything outside of our villain's arc is just kind of not worth dealing with because the first movie was so good now that I knew, like Shitty was evil, Like I would have really hoped that they had more of like the connecting like Bluetooth Wi Fi to the cloud of self Sione, like as you mentioned, like the tone of the line of you know, you can't an old robot new programs type of city. But it's like, knowing that he started out as like this fucking threat, I would have hoped that they would have gone like the Kaiju route, where like, well, shit, we got Mecha guan Zilla out there, let's not let's recruit Mathra.

Let's go right right, And it's like there's nobody else to recruit other than Chitty, Like that's it. Like it's because there are so many other robots, like even the ones ditzing around in the background that I know were just rentals. I don't care. It's kind just hoping for just a bit more involved with it, because that is that scientist's thing. And I thought, okay, so it's probably isolated because nobody's understanding like the morality of having like a thoughtful robot.

That's why it's in the museum and turned off. Like I already had like a bunch of builts in war that I projected on it, but there was no follow to any of them to even allude to that could potentially be it. They just wanted to punch them up, but they didn't approach it in the way of a traditional punch movie. So it was very confusing, like totally, there were moments that were very successful. I was honestly hoping for a little bit more of the war rat that they started with in the beginning, because that montage was pretty chrisp that was really nice.

And then you throw in the backstory and I'm like, okay, so if we go back to the jump cut and really like make this spectacle worth it, because it seemed like it was more of like a showing up the spectacle of like the CGI and one upping themselves and like this big, big movie, but I don't know what it was, this big shot to fill through what I can tell. So, yeah, it's only so far, you can guess. Well, on the first movie was not really interested in doing what this movie was doing. The first movie was interested in telling the story of Chitty the robot and what he kind of the journey he goes on from being a robot to essentially, I guess by the end of it be again. And as much as these narratives ever get there, like being human or knowing what it learning and understanding what it means, right, Like, that's not this character, Frank, i'mthing more sentient right, frankly, what this movie should have been.

It should have been Amy Jackson as the lead, and she should have been Chitty three point zero, you know what I mean? Like he makes they make her as the bright again, just do Bride of Frankenstein, Like that's what they're trying to do, but the bride already exists, and then Frankenstein comes back, Like this should have been Uh, you know, Chitty is helping me make another robot, but this robot won't have the same problems Chitty does as Chitty is effectively neutered now because of what happened in the first movie. They make her and she is essentially force positive good. She's Superman. She can't be corrupted, and by the end of the movie, she can't beat the threat alone.

So they have to bring Chitty in as the point five amount to take them over the top to resolve the conflict. And there you go, Why do it the other way? We have seen the Chitty story now we don't need to see him as the lead again. He got his own three hour movie, right, like we're good, we learn, We're done right, Like he can be a supporting character, but he doesn't need to be the lead. Again, and I think if he wasn't the lead, I think this.

I don't think this movie would have been fixed, but I think would have been at least a little bit more interesting. It would have felt a little different as opposed to kind of just like a Frankenstein's Monster and cobbled together from other parts of other seemingly disparate things, very disparate things in some of the some of the cases and the stuff in this movie. Because again, I just I appreciate the first movie a lot more now, I'll tell you that much, so much more. It like this movie just I don't know, I get why they don't do sequels in Indian cinema, And this is a very good example as to why, because like they gave us too much in the first movie, mean too they can tell yeah, I mean they're so long, they go into so much detail about all the characters usually and yeah, they tell complete stories.

There isn't a need, right, what else is there to say by the end of the movie. With a lot of Indian cinema, I'm like, what else is there to say? Like, what else? Even with a movie like Pathon which is exists for sequels to come afterwards, because it's in a connected universe. Even that movie, by the end of it, it felt like, I don't I know that there are more movies coming.

I know that there are going to be sequels at the Wazoo, but like this was a solo story that stands alone and if nothing came after this, I could sit and watch this movie and be okay. And I felt the same way about Enthon, And now it's like kind of been diminished a little bit, but also in in a different way kind of I appreciate the first movie a lot more. I really do, because again, the restraint that they showed in the first movie is they could have used a lot of it here. They really could have. And it's a half an hour shorter, like it's a shorter movie too, and it feels longer.

It feels longer, and it just unlike the first movie that keeps you engaged throughout, this one just spins its wheels a bit. Yeah, So, Maggie. Final thoughts on two point zero. Man, it could have been a lot more interesting concepts, wonderful design. I'll say the spectacle actually, like I'll say that it fulfilled its role on that one.

It's just a lot with not a lot of time behind it. Jess, I'm good. I'm good. I never need to experience bird Monster ever again. Yeah, I think this is a very unnecessary movie.

I'll agree with you. I think I think it's only unnecessary in the way that we've gotten it now. I think this could have been something interesting. I mean, sequels have come out to Indian cinema that are good, that do work, that aren't diminishing returns x ten like this movie. But the direction that this movie goes, the setup that it's using, the kind of things that it remembers and forgets from the movie that's better than it are noticeable.

If you're a fan of the original movie, or you have even seen the original movie, which I guess you shouldn't, which is what this almost feels like. Don't watch the original because you might not like this movie. But if you don't watch the original, you may not understand what's going on with this movie either. So look, you can go find it right now on Prime video. Just you know, just know that it's not as good as the original.

But you know, when our sequels ever, Really that's the exception that proves the rule for the most part. You know, The Godfather part two like Terminator too, like that those are doctor right, Like how many do we have? Not that many, but the ones that we do have or you know the Godfather too, like need I say it? Right? They're really good.

They're very exceptions to the rules. Right, So until the next time we do one of these together. Where can people find you, Maggie? You can find me at Dolan Museum dot com d O l I N Museum and I also have a YouTube under at Dolan Museum, so there you go. By you Jess, you can find me on Instagram at writer Jess Fired, and you can find me on LinkedIn if you need to hire somebody creative professional what like that?

That's true and people listen to this show shock thought, somebody wants to offer me a job at India, we can go to my min they oh be nice. You can go watch DDLJ in theaters in India, which would be dope. I'd be down for that. Likewise, as for me, you can find me at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is the home for all the things that I work on, along with the whole host of other things like eighties TV ladies, astounding tales of the public domain, and I wish we pull out of the bag on this episode Twisted and on Court why not another show totally worth checking out. They're all worth checking out, So head on over to Weirdingwaymedia dot com as for this show, Bollywood Cinema Club dot com on all social media, and that's where you can go to find us Bollywood Cinema Club dot com, like, rate and review the show wherever you get it.

Jess Maggie, thank you both so much for joining me. As always, I wish the movie had been a little bit better. But you know, they can't all be d DLJ, so that's true. Yeah, they can't all be amazing, so but they can all be three hours long? Yeah, well yeah, that's fair as a And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.