Mission Mangal

Ultimately it's a consummate Vidya Balan who rises above everything else and, thankfully, makes Mission Mangal all about a good-hearted matriarch instead of a patronising patriarch.

The human interactions are the best part of the film. The downer comes from the science bits, clearly crafted for dummies.

Jagan Shakti's exhilaratingly schmaltzy fact-based drama about India's epochal launch of a Mars-bound satellite is a rousing crowd-pleaser.

Mission Mangal is watchable, if not always exhilarating, if you can get over its excesses.

The film's tech talk is dumbed down to a laughable degree, with metaphors ranging from cooking to cricket supplanting anything approaching actual rocket science.

Some merit can be awarded for technical competency and a game supporting cast but, otherwise, Mission Mangal is the most simplistically boring trip to Mars one could take.

It's hard to make intelligence look entertaining. But it's harder to make intelligence look stupid. And yet, this is exactly what Mission Mangal manages to do.

In between the gimmicky jugaad philosophising and meaningless sub-plots, Mission Mangal manages to devote some time to space technology...

Most of its shortcomings are overshadowed by the camaraderie shared by the cast.

All-in-all, watch the film to savour a path-breaking milestone in India's space exploration history, never mind the scientific inaccuracies...