Welcome to the Jungle review: Majnu Bhai's painting deserves a better legacy

A day before the release of Welcome to the Jungle, Akshay Kumar requested critics to skip the stars and rate the film with laughing emojis instead. It's a clever request. Because after sitting through nearly three hours of this film, numbers do begin to feel inadequate.

The idea of what makes people laugh is deeply personal. Humour is subjective. What tickles one person's funny bone can leave another staring blankly at the screen. Ours, we believe, demands a little more effort than what this Ahmed Khan directorial has to offer.

Every punchline, gag and chaotic sequence in this third film from the franchise ends up doing one thing remarkably well: making you appreciate the original Welcome even more. Not that the 2007 film ever needed validation. But watching Welcome to the Jungle feels like a useful reminder of why we fell in love with it in the first place.

The story begins with the making of a flop film. A billionaire (no Mallya was hurt), in an attempt to siphon off his money, instructs his manager (Johnny Lever) to produce the worst film in history. The irony. Enter Dev and Das (no Abbas Mustan were hurt) - a director duo played by Rajpal Yadav and Paresh Rawal - who take up the challenge with alarming sincerity.

The cast is assembled. Akshay Kumar (Rajeev) plays a washed-up actor trying his luck in the Bhojpuri film industry. Suniel Shetty (Yeda Anna) and Arshad Warsi (Romeo) show up as gangsters owed money by the filmmakers. Then come Tusshar Kapoor, Daler Mehndi, Krushna Abhishek, Kiku Sharda, Mukesh Tiwari, Yashpal Sharma, Urvashi Rautela, Jacqueline Fernandez, Disha Patani, Shreyas Talpade, Aftab Shivdasani, Vindu Dara Singh, and several others.

A giant jungle set is built. There are helicopters, detonators, exploding cars and elaborate action sequences. Nobody seems particularly interested in the story. Neither are we.

Somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, the film introduces a romance between Akshay Kumar, 58, and Disha Patani, 34. The pair appear so thoroughly uninterested in each other that it starts feeling like an accidental parody of itself. Whether this is the screenplay's fault or simply Disha's permanently detached screen presence is difficult to determine.

A rivalry is established between Rajeev and Yeda Anna. Characters scream. More characters arrive. Things explode. Then, right before the interval, the film abruptly abandons whatever little plot it had and shifts to a real jungle, seemingly somewhere around Kashmir.

There are terrorists, referred to as "mujahideen". A village called Azadganj. Snow-capped mountains. Urdu songs. References to freedom. Villagers waiting to be rescued. Jackie Shroff (Zatara) appears with a group of militants. Raveena Tandon, Kiran Kumar and Fareeda Jalal turn up as villagers. And just like that, the comedy transforms into a patriotic action drama.

The real chaos, however, begins for the audience. That the film is going to be messy is evident from its opening sequence. What you don't anticipate is just how aggressively determined it is to keep getting messier.

Welcome to the Jungle could have been a jungle comedy about anything. Instead, it wants to do it all - being a spoof, an action film, a patriotic drama, a romance, a social commentary, a war movie and also a showcase for every celebrity with a free weekend. Somewhere between Akshay's enthusiastic overacting and Disha's determined underacting, the film discovers a new benchmark for mediocrity. It sets the bar so low that it stops being a line and becomes a dot.

To be fair, it's not all bad.

If your idea of entertainment is watching famous people run around expensive sets while explosions go off in the background, there is enough material here to keep you occupied. There are moments that work: a meta exchange between Akshay and Raveena, where she asks him why he never came back for her in 20 years. If you know you know.

For fans familiar with their history, it lands as probably the funniest moment in the entire film. Another one is when Mehndi is asked to perform in front of the film's villain and the entire cast breaks into an impromptu Tunak Tunak mode. The problem is that every time Welcome to the Jungle accidentally stumbles into something funny, it immediately runs away from it.

The screenplay keeps changing lanes. One minute it's slapstick, the next it is action. Then romance. Then patriotism. Then terrorism. Then another explosion. By the end, the film seems as confused about its identity as the audience is about what exactly they have paid to watch. At one point, Rajpal's Dev instructs the actors in his film-within-the-film to do whatever they want, move at their own pace and build the story themselves. The irony of that now.

Everyone appears to be performing in a different movie. The camera just records the chaos.

The women fare even worse. While the men compete in an Olympic event of stupidity, the women exist largely as decorative accessories. The film is surprisingly self-aware about this. Jacqueline's character openly asks why she is even in the film, only to be told that she is there for glamour. And more irony.

Which brings us to Katrina Kaif, who was never the strongest actor in the room. But she brought charisma, comic timing, screen presence and an effortless chemistry with Akshay that became a defining ingredient of the original Welcome. The film understood exactly how to use her. Welcome to the Jungle doesn't seem to know what to do with its women beyond dressing them up, positioning them strategically in songs and occasionally using them as bait for terrorists.

The only exception is Lara Dutta's army officer, who storms into the film, injects some much-needed energy into proceedings and disappears before you can begin to care. Which is a shame, because the original Welcome knew that even comedy needs structure.

The 2007 film was great because of its precision. Every character had a purpose. Every misunderstanding led to another misunderstanding. Every punchline landed because the writing had done the hard work first. Majnu Bhai's painting became iconic not because the film told us it was iconic, but because the joke was funny. The aaloo-kanda moment turned out to be legendary because of the way it was delivered - nothing polished about it and yet so much laughter.

Nearly two decades later, the painting returns in Welcome to the Jungle, and it is safe to assume that the legacy of that ridiculous painting has aged better than the franchise itself. While Welcome trusted its writing, Welcome to the Jungle trusts its cast list.

Which brings us to the obvious question: should you watch Welcome to the Jungle?

Go ahead.

People around us laughed. We laughed too, occasionally. But it was more about the absurdity of sitting through it.

Humour is subjective and comedy is perhaps the most personal genre there is. If your idea of a good time is watching a parade of celebrities shout over one another while helicopters explode, terrorists appear, love stories bloom and disappear, and the screenplay changes its mind every 15 minutes, you'll probably have fun. We just hope your standards for laughter ask for a little more.

The biggest problem with Welcome to the Jungle isn't that it's stupid. Plenty of great comedies are gloriously stupid. The original Welcome certainly was. The difference is that beneath all the madness, there was writing. Here, there is mostly movement.

The film keeps introducing new faces, new twists and new subplots as if another celebrity entry will fix the last one. After a point, the entries stop feeling exciting. They become attendance. "Oh, he's here too." "Him as well?" "Fine, send the next one."

By the time the climax arrives - and there seem to be more than one - you have stopped wondering who will defeat the terrorists. You've stopped caring whether Rajeev gets the girl. You don't even remember who owes money to whom anymore. Somewhere in the middle of all that nothingness, the film loses your interest. You aren't waiting for the story to end anymore, but for the film to realise it should.

Oh, and the film has its own Munni moment too. Unlike Bajrangi Bhaijaan, though, you can't help but root for this Munni to stay lost in the jungle. Nobody deserves to be reunited with this lot.