Magick4Terri: "Aabra Ka Daabra"

So, as part of the Magick 4 Terri auction, I agreed to watch and write up the movie of the winner's choice, no matter what they threw at me!

Turns out, telophase had a doozy.

Aabra Ka Daabra is a Bollywood children's movie not at all reminiscent of Harry Potter or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or anything, OKAY, so STOP ASKING. Featuring "amazing" 3D effects, according to the box; this is technically true, but probably not in the spirit they intended.

Please note that, because I have no idea how you even go about screencapping a 3D movie in 2D, I have done what I can to ameliorate the 3D effects in the screencaps, but some scenes I will just have to describe because the 3D was so amazing that it was basically an Impressionist painting.

However, that does mean that the screencap quality and the film quality are both lacking.



Thank you, Flying Carpet Class teacher.



So, our movie opens with this visual effect (not kidding):



Actual visual effect.

The wand rises (heyooo) and begins to tell us of the sage who made it, long ago, and founded a school for magic, the venerable and extremely serious academic institution Aabra Ka Daabra. But of course, because you know those ladies, a woman challenged his power:



…FABULOUSLY.

A terrible fight ensues!



…We are left to assume!

(It's not a terribly exciting fight. It was, however, not unlike the Wizard-off in Fellowship of the Ring, which says more about Peter Jackson than about this movie, I think, if we're being honest.)

The sage was defeated, but he held on to his magic wand, and someday a hero shall come to claim it, etc, we know the drill.

Roll credits! Comic Sans only, please.



This was the last credit, and while I don't deny Anupam Kher has earned the title of "Above All," I also sort of hope he just snuck onto the computer and wrote that in himself.

Meanwhile, hundreds of years later, our hapless hero Shanu arrives at his wizarding school in the middle of the night, alone, because sure.



He's immediately confronted by a hostile bouncing ball! When he threatens it, the ball turns into the disgraced groundskeeper and magic-school dropout (ding!) Limbu.



(In case this facial expression concerns you, know now that "subtler" was never a direction given to any of these actors, at any time.)

After apparently spending the night on the steps of the school (they never mention what happened to him that whole night! This movie cares not!), Shanu has to report to the evil headmistress, who looks exactly like the evil sorceress from hundreds of years ago but is not, as we can clearly see from this portrait of Great-great-great-great-Grandma Evil hanging in the Headmistress's office:



Also hanging in the Headmistress's office, a day player who's in the middle of a punishment!




But when Shanu enters, the fun's over, and the headmistress summons Zulu, her purple flying dismembered head demon, to show Shanu around the school.



(Featuring amazing 3D effects!)

Literally three seconds later:



Worldbuilding? Please. That's for movies without these groundbreaking special effects! (A clever ruse, though, movie, I'll grant you that.)

And now, for a smug antagonist and some loyal friends!



The hair is so bad that the teachers call him "the blonde kid" at regular intervals. Also, his signature move is to wipe his nose aggressively, at which point wind chimes always play. We'll assume that any nose candy in this movie happens only in the Chocolate Factory interlude (we'll get there).

He demands that the new kid prove his magic; Shanu does the old "punch this hand as hard as you can, but the noise will come from somewhere else" setup that means Thug Assistant 1 ends up clocking Thug Assistant 2 right in the kisser. (Blackmailing a groundskeeper and making his enemies beat each other up? This is already more savvy than Mr. Potter had for, like, three books.)



These are the friends, Pinky and Dinki. I was pleased that they were both girls and seemed to have active personalities, until I realized Dinki's personality trait was "hungry." It's literally her only one. During the flying carpet capture the flag fight, someone tosses an apple at her and she drops the flag to catch it and eat it. It's one of those.

The teaching body is in an uproar about this one-dimensional characterization!



Or not.

In levitation studies, Shanu is the bestest and can concentrate right away (ding!); Antagonist Kid manages to lift the teacher, to much amusement. But then the five minutes allotted to classes in this movie are up, and it's time to break into the traditional Daily Magic School Paint Balloon Fight and Tug-of-War Musical Number!





(Pinky is noisemaking happily for Antagonist and his gang. No one calls her out on that rude-ass teamswitching, but I will, because that shit is not cool, Pinky.)

With that out of the way and no overarching theme or plot or scene of dialogue yet to emerge (ding!), it's time for the next five-minute class, Flying Carpets, taught by that teacher everyone had who thought she was the Cool Teacher with her thumb on the Pulse of Youth Trends and probably said you could call her "Ms. M" or whatever.



Agreed!

(Actually, this is in reference to the kids who answer her question about the purpose of magic carpets. Pinky suggests it's to see all the beauty of the world, which is, of course, correct. Antagonist Kid suggests they use it to catch pigeons and mimes tearing their heads off, and then is super surprised when it's termed Very Bad, which, really? I mean, you can say that all you want, but at no point are people going to listen to that idea and not say, "That's kind of a Very Bad idea, Kid with Glittery Highlights.")

Still, it's time to fly! Shanu and Antagonist Kid are, of course, the best in class.

But all is not musical numbers and flying carpets at Aabra Ka Daabra school of magic! Shanu's nights are filled with sorrow.


(Above, the Pose of Sorrow, struck under the Purple Flowered Bedspread of Sorrow.)

You see, his extremely 3D father whose scenes I couldn't screencap well was a Houdini-esque magician, whose trick of a lifetime was being locked in a box and thrown into the ocean without any kind of safety line or emergency buzzer or anything. To no one's surprise, he didn't come up again. Melodrama for everyone!



Here, Shanu's mother and uncle argue about the future of the family. Also, subtly, this actress is hoping to drum up some bigger-budget roles.

Shanu, for his part, sees a commercial on TV for a contest being sponsored by Camlin school supplies and Parle-G chocolate (sure), where they offer full tuition to the children who find the golden tickets (ding! For a completely different movie!).

Shanu and his mom are in for a long bout of dreaming and hardship. You know what that means! Musical number.



(Not visible without access to the amazing 3D special effects: all of those flying objects are enormous sweets, including one cookie that, judging from the scale, is about five and a half feet long.)

To no one's surprise, Shanu finds the very last ticket, and declares his intention to enter the magic school that everyone knows about and is not at all secret, so that he can learn magic and no one can ever again say his father was a fraud! Mom cries. Music soars.

(Also, I have to say, if someone drowns during a magic trick, and all you can say about it to his widow and child is that he must have been a fraud, you're kind of a dick, right?)

Meanwhile, Limbu is in his very-high-production-value magical lair, making a magical friend because he's so lonely (there are lots of issues this movie maybe should have explored and never did).



Friend not pictured because of extreme 3D-ness, but if I say "Casper," you'll have a good idea, because that little dude is fucking exactly Casper. His name is, I believe, Tu Tu, though that might just be the sound he makes. He will spend the rest of the movie delivering extremely important plot messages that no one ever listens to the first time, even though everyone uses him for their most important secret messages, so I am not sure why they all assume he's out to punk them constantly, but at some point that turns into my problem and not the movie's problem, so let's move on.

He's surprised by the arrival of Shanu, Pinky, and Dinki, who want to snoop around for kid-movie reasons. He gives them magic marbles that, when held in your mouth, make you invisible. (Dinki is warned repeatedly not to eat it, because of course.)

With their 3D invisibility in place, they follow the evil headmistress out to the woods for no particular reason, only to discover she has a hidden lair! They follow her inside, where they immediately spit out their invisibility marbles, as is the best strategy when you're alone in your enemy's stronghold.

But what is the treasure of this remote woodland stronghold?

It's Shanu's father! And he's being held prisoner until he gives her what she wants most!



As awesome as that parenthetical is, it's also not quite accurate, since as it turns out the concoction in question gives one eternal life instead, and THAT's what she's after, but not for herself - it's so she can transport her soul into the bird that loves her best:



(Actual thing that happens. Sometimes it screams "I LOVE YOU" at her. I can't help you. Nothing can help you now.)

And she knows he can do it, because as a flashback later explains, she saw him make it the very first time, using only magic and his Minority Report computer screens!




But Shanu's father steadfastly refuses to do any such thing, which is apparently fine with her, because the potion is what she wants SECOND-most. She's really after something else:





Rahul hates it when a chick can't just be cool.

But he's forgotten the powers of sorcery that are at her command! SEDUCTION POWERS.

In the movie, they go from standing six feet apart to neck-nuzzling instantly, even though the clothes are different. While this is the kind of movie where no one would be surprised by a lack of attention paid to continuity, there's actually a deleted scene that makes more sense, where she tries to seduce him with a Musical Number.



It's exactly as blurry and awkward as it looks, but it's worth it for the faces of the kids:



Aces.

But despite Shanu's worries that his dad is going to nuzzle the shit out of his evil headmistress, we know that's not going down - because the evil stronghold has a portrait of the sage in it (because of reasons? I don't know why you'd have a portrait or your archenemy in your stronghold), and he is NOT COOL with how this is going.



GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANNDAD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, RAHUL, YOU BIG HORNY DUMMY.

As soon as Rahul has been shamed by Granddad Sage's laser eyebeams into not sexing the headmistress (actually happens), it's back to the dungeons, and back to school with the nosey trio, to contemplate the bittersweet joy of a living parent in magical captivity, but mostly to rest up for the magic carpet capture the flag game!




It's all extremely 3D and full of Amazing Effects; take this Technicolor blur as a placeholder for this endless scene and let's just all move on.

The stakes for this game included the winner's right to roust the loser from the school. However, when Shanu is declared the victor, he opts not to punish Antagonist Kid at all, but instead to bury their animosity forever! (Antagonist smiles even though he knows this means he's being dropped from the plot never to be seen again.)

And to deliver the prize, our item number!



*deal with it.gif*

He then sings a long song about acceptance and love, and vanishes without ever giving Shanu his prize! What a jerk.

Meanwhile, someone finally thinks to send Tu Tu to Shanu's mom's house to let her know her husband isn't dead:




Shanu's mom speaks for all of us.

Shanu's uncle is swiftly dispatched to the magic school, where he presents himself as…a student? Or, a visitor? Something that requires a fake hypnotism as part of the room and board, that's all I know, and we're so awash in subplots by now that nothing matters any more.



Fall in love with the Cool Teacher? Sure, fine, see if I care! Be painful, bumbling comic relief for no reason? Be my guest!

(Though I will cop to cracking up when he comes into his room and sees his Very Magical Running Ostrich Statue:



I don't even know why! It just happened.)

But now that all the helpful adults are in place, it's time to face off against the evil headmistress!

First, they have to make their way through the dangerous forest to rescue the magic wand of the great sage, Shanu's great-great-great-great-great grandfather!



AMAZING 3D effects!

After his granddad nearly kills his only two friends for getting flustered as they hover on tiny balancing stones poised above the endless abyss of death (weenies), Shanu is able to answer the Quest Questions (spoilers: God and love are the answers, NOW GIVE ME MY WAND, OLD MAN), they split up - Shanu and Bumbling Concentration Teacher head off to the stronghold, and the girls are dismissed back to the school, where they promptly gather the adults - including Bumbling Concentration Teacher.

DUN DUN DUNNNN!

Meanwhile, completely unable to guess that anything about this suddenly-creepy Bumbling Teacher who wants possession of the wand he's carrying, Shanu sneaks inside the stronghold to greet his father, and finds him in an electrified cage.



You can't! (YES, that was an MC Hammer joke. NO, I do not care.)

But the reunion is interrupted by Headmistress, who was temporarily posing as Bumbling Concentration Teacher! Then there are impossible-to-screencap flying carpets everywhere and she shoots at Shanu and one of her hands turns into a snake and bites Shanu who starts to foam at the mouth and have a seizure and Rahul scrambles to pull up his Minority Report screens and put the aphrodisiac together for his son because his son NEEDS THAT APHRODISIAC and the headmistress shoves the wand underneath her on the throne and cackles and the bird-girl screams I LOVE YOU and you begin to think you are hallucinating.

Luckily, they cut outside for a glimpse of the fight going on out there!



Actually happens.

Long story short (you should be so lucky), the headmistress is vanquished, Shanu is healed, the aphrodisiac destroyed, the bad guys beaten to a pulp, Rahul reunited with his wife, Limbu promoted to headmaster of the school, and all is well!



And now it's a happy ending for everyone, except maybe Shanu, who now has That Cool Teacher for an aunt, which will probably get super annoying.

But, asks Zulu the purple flying skull who should probably not actually be interested in this, will Shanu return to school? What will happen to the magic wand? What happens next in this plot that I had apparently mistakenly thought was pretty much all wrapped up?



NOPE, I'M GOOD, THANK YOU.