Mission Mangal Review: The women in this film are out of this world

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Dubai Cinema Timings: https://gulfnews.com/cinema-listing#cinema/movie/HO00007202 Full Article here: https://gn24.ae/87c306a7cff6000 See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Indian National Award-winning actress Vidya Balan remembers being absolutely moonstruck when she saw an iconic image of a bunch of sari-clad women scientists, identified as the staff of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), looking jubilant as their spacecraft entered the Mars orbit for the first time in Indian space history. #MissionMangal #FilmReview #Bollywood

Transcript

00:00It's no rocket science to launch a satellite into Mars, or so we believe when we walk out

00:05of director Jagan Shakti's Mission Mangal.

00:13It's the cinematic equivalent of the Big Bang Theory.

00:16The only difference is that instead of the nerdy oddballs that we love the hit western

00:20TV series for, it's the women who take centre stage in Mission Mangal.

00:25Although it's spearheaded by Akshay Kumar, who's now Bollywood's go-to guy for patriotic

00:30films, this movie is fortunately not chest-thumpingly jingoistic.

00:35And Akshay Kumar, for a change, lets the women shine.

00:38He takes backseat.

00:40And it's very rare for a Bollywood hero in a movie to actually allow that to happen.

00:45He allows the women to grab the glory and they actually shine.

00:48Sonakshi, Sinha, Taapsee, Pannu, these are all women with incredible acting heft.

00:53Nitya Menon, Kirti Kulhari, and of course we all know Vidya Balan, who's like a national

00:58award-winning actress.

00:59Another thing that works for this movie is the release date of this film.

01:03It released on August 15, that's India's Independence Day.

01:07When we're just feeling a bit patriotic and a bit nostalgic about our home country,

01:12we have a movie like Mission Mangal talk about the incredible achievement of India.

01:18This film chronicles India's actual remarkable space mission history, where it sent a satellite

01:24into Mars in September 2014.

01:27It was our current Prime Minister Modi who took the credit for it and claimed that the

01:32mission was conducted and less than the budget of a normal Hollywood film.

01:36And which I say is an incredible feat.

01:39The biggest flaw of this film, of course, is how director Jagan Shakti, and it's written

01:44by Art Balki as well, how he has oversimplified science.

01:48In fact, this is one of the few movies where you feel like science is not very tough and

01:54that everybody can crack it.

01:56That's one of the reasons why you walk out of the cinema thinking, maybe I could have

01:59been a scientist if I had more common sense perhaps.

02:02And that's one of the downfalls of this film.

02:04Applying the use of fuel, the way you would make a puri and Indian bread, is a bit too simplistic.

02:10Maybe it really happened, but it's very difficult for us to digest it.

02:14While a person who does not understand science will enjoy this film thoroughly, there may

02:19be experts who might frown at the oversimplification that we just saw.

02:24The strides that you see in this movie, taken on both the feminist front and perhaps erasing

02:29religious hate, is very superficial.

02:31Director Shakti does not dwell deeply into it, but somehow he manages to still put his

02:36point across.

02:38Trying to unite comedy, wit, humour and drama into one movie is not very easy.

02:43But director Shakti takes a leap of faith here and tries to unite all of this and what we

02:48get is a slightly messy product.

02:50I wish there was a movie just made on the backstories of these women because I would

02:55definitely put my money on it.

02:57While this film is not going to be an out of this world experience, it's definitely

03:01going to make your world go round or spin because of the women in it.

03:05I've given 3 out of 5.

03:07For my full review, go to gulfnews.com slash tabloid.

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