Jumbo; Indiatimes' view

Whether you are an Akshay Kumar aficionado or an animation genre fan, Jumbo won't appeal much to either. This time the animation format is enhanced but the storytelling is obsolete.

The narrative of Jumbo dates back to the age-old lost-and-found formula of the Manmohan Desai era, as a baby elephant is separated from his mother (Dimple Kapadia). Further we are informed that his father was a royal elephant who lost his life in a battle by the rival kingdom's tusker Bhaktavar (Gulshan Grover). So the treatment becomes trite with the hackneyed revenge drama angle forced in.

Sheltered by a Chacha Chaudhary clone, Jumbo (Akshay Kumar) grows up and finds his mandatory girlfriend in Sonia (Lara Dutta). The king of their province calls for another battle and expectedly Jumbo is chosen as the emperor's elephant. Who wins the war is as easy as predicting the animal's species from the name Jumbo.

Animation films can afford to resort to cliches provided they stretch it to the extent of spoof. Unfortunately Jumbo doesn't get satirical but formulaic. It is severely short on humour with its only coherent comic character being a Zazoo kind of birdie (voiced by Rajpal Yadav).

Jumbo's quest to avenge his father's death isn't as persuasive as it could have been like in The Lion King. Neither his search for his mother is as fervent as it could have been like in Finding Nemo. I don't really intend to compare the films but illustrate that emotions in the animation format could be equally convincing. Rather what you see is jackals resembling Scrat from Ice Age series. And elephants speaking the same language as humans but neither of the species are surprised like in Bee Movie.

The animation is consistently 3-dimensional throughout but the creations could certainly have been more imaginative. Like many of the elephants look deformed with their disproportionate small heads and curved legs. In fact the animators have made guinea 'pigs' of some of their smaller avatars (no pun). Moreover with the lip movements of the elephants being almost concealed behind their trunks, their dialogue delivery appear more as background voiceovers.

The dubbing of the film is least challenging for an animation film, as it doesn't involve any voice modulation in connection with the characters. Akshay Kumar plays the narrator in the first half and voices for Jumbo only in the second. Nevertheless none is impressive and moreover his unanimated screen presence was absolutely avoidable. Others like Gulshan Grover and Rajpal Yadav distinctly sound like celebrities rather than characters.

Jumbo isn't as hugely entertaining as the title suggests.