Pyare Mohan
Star cast: Viveik Anand Oberoi, Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol, Amrita Rao, Boman Irani
Director: Indra Kumar
Showing at: City Pride, E-Square, Inox, Gold Adlabs, Mangala
When Indra Kumar made Masti, Viveik Anand Oberoi was still plain old Vivek Oberoi and the movie did have some moments of masti. It was a hit too. The change of spelling has done nothing good for poor Viveik or Kumar’s latest: Pyare Mohan, which is an unmitigated disaster.

Pyare is blind (Fardeen) and Mohan is deaf (Viveik). Their day time job is to run an Archies shop (the whole cast is made to say it several times over, just in case we forget, and for Archies to get its paisa-vasool), and help lovelorn couples get together. They also laugh inordinately loud at their own jokes. At night, they sigh and moan at the lack of women in their lives.

Along come two sisters (Esha and Amrita). They only have to smile at the two fellows for them to fall in love. But wait, all is not hunky dory. The girls go off to Bangkok, dumping the boys-they are disabled, how will they take care of the delicate little darlings, naaa?

In his better films (Dil, Beta and Ishq) Indra Kumar’s penchant for the tasteless has been balanced by his ability to produce loud hilarity and teary melodrama. Here, Kumar saddles himself with a limp screenplay and limp acting. Fardeen and Viveik make an unhappy couple: the latter was an adequate jokester in Masti because he had Aftab and Riteish as back-up! But here he is as flat as the movie’s gags. So are the girls. And so, shockingly, is Boman Irani, who plays Tony Fernandes, the don who lisps— even he needs lines with a snap to make things crackle and pop.

Frozen moments
Ice Age 2—The Meltdown
Voices of: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Jay Leno
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Showing at: E-Square, Inox, Gold Adlabs
The pre-historic animals are back. Manny the woolly mammoth, Sid the sloth, Diego the saber-toothed tiger and Scrat the acorn-chasing squirrel-cum-rat are joined this time by Ellie, a female mammoth who thinks she is a possum and two smart-mouthed possums who think they are the brightest animals on the planet.

Their safe world is in trouble. The ice is melting and soon there will be a flood. All creatures, big and small, are scurrying to safety. The vultures are gathering. In the middle of all the chaos, Manny decides to fall in love. But Ellie (Queen Latifah is a hoot) needs to be convinced that she is not a possum.

Ice Age 2 starts off real slow, takes its time to gather momentum and ends in a satisfying scrum. Scary creatures from the deep are beaten back. Scrat is dragged back from acorn heaven. Ellie is won over and the gang is together again.

The detailing is marvelous, so are the animals, but the whole thing comes off stodgy. There’s not too much fun going on. There’s altogether too much yakkety-yak. Fine for 10-year-olds and on, but not so good for the little kiddies. My experience: a whole bunch of kiddies in the row behind us, kicked our seats and spilled coke and ran up and down all through the film.