Professor Shanku O El Dorado

My review is purely based on my perspective as an audience. I do read good stories as well. 1. This character of Shoku by Satyajit Ray has a nostalgic value for most of Bengali children of the 80s and 90s. Portraying him with mobile phones and laptops doesn't really strike the right cord. 2. Using VfX should be logical and shouldn't be used unnecessarily. Like there is a scene where Shonku dials or saves number from a holographic gadget. Why? If you have more convenient mobile phone. The teleconference by a holographic projector seemed unconvincing. It would have been better if all the guys were sitting as normal instead of floating over the table. Eg. In Avenger movies. 3. The screenplay was so boring that I had to fast forward a lot. The scenes of people travelling were... of only them travelling and driving, nothing else. 4. The story should have taken place in the 80s. 5. The acting all around was mediocre. Seemed like the casting director had hired some foreign tourists with elementary acting skills. 6. Only good part is the effort put in and indeed the professionals behind the camera have worked hard but the whole thing fell apart due to poor conceptualizing and screenplay.

First 45 min is boring as hell. I think holographic conversation, finding diary, Suitcase of Biswas these were overstretched and unnecessary.

It is somewhat good after that.

I want to start the review by appreciating Sandip Ray and team for venturing into the audacious task of bringing Professor Shanku from pages into the screen. The biggest challenge in filming Shanku is the necessity for advanced graphics and exotic location shoot. While camera work in the streets of Sao Paolo and bird's eye views of the amazon rain forest catches attention, the VFX team has done a mediocre job at best. Acting through out the film has been reasonably good from the Indian actors. Dhritiman as Professor Shanku seems unnecessarily annoyed at times but overall has portrayed the character well. Subhashis Chakraborty fits in the role of Nakur babu perfectly too. However, the foreign actors in the roles of Dr. Sauders and Krol are too expressive, even tiring at times. The use of music in the film is commendable, enhances the cinematic experience. Sandip Ray has not veered far off from the Satyajit Ray school of music, the tunes in the movie sometimes reminded me of the Feluda theme. However, the main issue with the movie to me is it fails to hold your attention. There is no build-up of suspense, no sequence for provoking thought in the audience; It's more like a grand Brazilian travelogue. I would like to see more audience engagements in the upcoming Shanku ventures.

Professor Shonku O El Dorado - Based on the original story "Nakur Babu O El Dorado" by Satyajit Ray that featured in Anandamela in 1980, this film doesn't waste any time and gets into the action quite hurriedly. The storyline is almost 4 decades old, but its backdrop is modern (2019, thus giving the adventure a feel of obsolescence, in spite of a glossy presentation. The science fiction that's forty years old fails to create the intended astonishment among the audience as over the last couple of decades, viewers have been exposed to humongous development of science and technology, and western films have created a deep impact already. Now with Netflix and Amazon Prime in our living rooms, Professor Shonku appears jaded, tired and grossly outdated. I am not so certain even if children will be thrilled with this presentation. Nevertheless, Dhritiman Chatterjee is sophisticated and suave, albeit lacking the energy to pull through the film for his own intrinsic value.

India film about a brilliant inventor who visits Brazil and deals with an unscrupulous man. Slow-moving and without much purpose but story-telling entertainment. A couple of decent plot twists, and that's about it for anything notable.

The actors play their parts well enough. I found the characters interesting in the portrayal, but not in development. They aren't exactly 2D characters, but not much fleshed out either. Still, the acting is likely the most interesting thing in this film. (The scenery is nice in places, as would be expected. Just not much of it.)

This is basic story-telling, and rather slow-moving at that. The focus is on inter-character conversation rather than anything else. It can't be called "action-adventure" because (with the exception of one short scene involving flying arrows), there's simply not much action. As for adventure, the show never actually reaches a climax, and in the ending the movie just sort of ends (thud. Credits roll). So not much adventure to speak of.

So it's okay for spending an hour and a half on a rainy afternoon when you're bored silly... but not much value beyond that. It's not the worst movie ever made, nor does it by any means warrant 10 stars. It's just a mediocre piece of filmery (had to coin a word to describe it)... and not much more.