A must watch.
Pakistan's first attempt at making a superhero movie based on Tilism-e-Hoshruba an Urdu recension of a persian classic the Hamzanama.
In comparison to the best of Marvel or DC I would have rated the movie 5 which is pretty good for a first try. I went for a 7 because of the same reason and the fact that great effort has been observed from the part of the producers and all other people involved in the film and not to even mention the beautiful CGIs. Never thought we would get to see something of this quality in Pakistani cinema but here we are. One step at a time.
It should be emphasised that much more could have been done to make the movie better. Especially in the story writing, story telling and direction department. Characters were unnecessarily expressive at times especially when it came to being angry. Too many borrowed Clichy's, we need more novel ideas than were in this film. Also there was too much English being spoken, should definitely minus that part in the sequel, It is embarrassing how instead of keeping things traditional and culturally relevant there were unnecessary and cringy attempts to westernize things. Aim your things at the regular people and they will come. Instead of bikes could have used a flying carpet. Instead of English could have used Persian, it would have made more sense. Costume design seemed too middle eastern and Mediterranean at times with little basis in south Asian culture and tradition. Usman Mukhtar's character in his fathers suit looked like some ancient roman warrior without the helmets.
Acting by Usman Mukhtar, Hamza Ali Abbasi and Farhan Tahir was the best from the lot but still requires more attention. It was over done at times and underwhelming in places. Also I think, Hamza Ali Abassi's character should be more involved in the sequel if any. He did well. His character seemed much more interesting than Usman Mukhtars.
Nevertheless I would recommend everyone to go and watch this movie, its quite entertaining and unique in the sense that you will never see a movie that is about a superhero but also contains jinns, Ifrits and demons and is rooted in cultural traditional beliefs of the people of that land. Its our duty to help the producers recover the amount put into making this film with aesthetically pleasing visual and CGI also to ensure that they can come back stronger the next time with a larger budget and significant improvements hopefully.
