Metacritic reviews

Pathaan is by no means flawless. It tries to marry a Hollywood-style action film with Bollywood camp. Sometimes it delivers, and sometimes the script is just too banal. It could also be edited more judiciously. But the film entertains and leaves you grooving to an infectious tune at the end.

It’s a chaotic, protracted, wild ride that takes the audience across global locations and through past and present, but the amped up scale, imagination and audacity, the spectacular action set-pieces, clever writing and in-your-face charisma of its stars including Shah Rukh Khan in a long-awaited return to the big screen make it, in Indian parlance, paisa vasool - a film well worth the price of admission.

The film sags a little towards the end, with a few too many implausible action sequences: characters jumping out of helicopters and fighting on top of speeding SUVs, the choreography glossing over the basics of gravity and physics. Still, the cheers kept coming.

While its reach may exceed its grasp, any shortcomings of Pathaan are papered over by the sheer charisma of its lead actor, who once again demonstrates why he is one of the most popular movie stars in the world.

Pathaan is in some ways a save-the-world superhero movie without suits, and while less self-serious, the hefty length can lag. More is not always better — though the gusto of Padukone speedskating to the rescue at one point goes a long way.

Pathaan has a stop-and-go rhythm, and a strung-together structure, that grows wearying. (Two-and-a-half hours of frenetic derivative pulp is a lot of pulp.)

Some high-concept set pieces rise above shoddy execution and creative mismanagement, particularly any wire stunts involving helicopters, byplanes, or rocket-powered jet packs.