Shehzada

Shehzada is a frame-to-frame faithful recreation of Trivikram Srinivas's Telugu hit Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020), which starred Allu Arjun and Pooja Hegde. Nothing has changed. It has the same story, same character arcs, same kind of dialogue and Sachin Khedekar even reprises his role of a benevolent grandfather. Don't expect anything to make sense because it doesn't.

With campy humour and action, this is just a mass entertainer. If watching a mass entertainer with a gang of friends is your jam, you could make a trip to the theatre.

For all the swag Aaryan tries to exude, comparisons with Arjun are inescapable. The problem with the remake is it never earns the mood it wants to create. Shehzada never makes us travel back in time or embrace the fragrance of nostalgia. It actually makes us crave for it even more.

Kartik Aaryan tries to recreate Allu Arjun's crowd-pleasing antics but not from scratch. Every slo-mo flip, dance move and punchline owes all its swagger to the 'Stylish Star' that might please his fans but lacks selfhood. He's alright but never exceptional.

Shehzada is a contrived comedic melodrama that faithfully rehashes a tried-and-tested formula, with director Rohit Dhawan making very few tweaks to the source material. If Telugu films bolster such projects with strong scripts, Shehzada is carried solely by Aaryan's chutzpah.

A jaded remake of Telugu blockbuster Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, Shehzada stutters in what it sets out to do: entertain. At the core, it is a 'Manmohan Desai meets Davi Dhawan' kind of masala recipe but in the hands of director Rohit Dhawan, it tastes rather bland and generic. Kartik has chosen the wrong vehicle to enter the universe of a mass entertainer.