Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Reggie. The famous five known as The Archies, is the dream friend squad of every high school teen. They live in a small fictional American town called Riverdale. This fictitious world of Riverdale is the domain of Archie comic universe and has all the teenage drama 'Bbuz"' in it.
Archies has always been special to me and has many connections to my childhood. I met Archie through GEN X. My father has been a devoted Archie reader. He had a huge collection of Archie comics, and each comic had a little bit of a childhood tale in it.
Archies was Netflix to my parents. This all-time classic debuted back in the 1940s, and Pep Comics made it 84 years old. Surprisingly, it still gracefully manages to captivate minds with its intricate word expressions and knock-off dialogues.
Archie is mainly based on the character Archie Andrews, his friends and his love interests. The chic, classy and sassy Veronica could make all the hearts melt, and Betty, being the calm, timid and wise persona, captured the minds. The readers are constantly as confused as Archie Andrews when choosing between Betty and Veronica in the perennial triangular romance.
Recently, the new age makers are weaving the Archie with magnanimous twists and alterations in the respective characters and themes. The original Archie depicts all the characters quite differently than we see on Netflix's Riverdale. They have turned the fun Archies into a dark and mysterious crime-solving genre, the catastrophic version of the old comics.
Archie became gore from a heartfelt, vibrant and enjoyable piece. Still, the best part was Veronica Lodge, played by the gorgeous American actress Camila Carraro Mendes, and undoubtedly, she was the perfect fit.
Viewers are also pretty fond of the new version of Jughead Jones: witty, private, generous and romantic, almost the exact opposite from the comic's Jughead and Cole Sprouse played it.
On the other hand, we see a much-awed version of The Archies in Bollywood, adapted as a musical by legendary Indian filmmaker Zoya Akhter. The storyline was beautifully scripted, and they delved themselves to maintain the cultural equivalence with their essence of modification on the masterpiece. It is based in India and is in Hindi.
To make it more relatable to their targeted audiences, they imprinted the characters as Anglo-Indians and Riverdale, their fictional place of residence in India.
As an Archie reader and a GenZ fan of this classic comic series, some scenes were not appropriately plotted and had a few gaps to fill. This is also under the banner of Netflix.
The movie introduced us to some upcoming actors and works more as a platform for building their pathway to the much-awaited stardom.
The debutantes and the debutants were Suhana Khan as Veronica Lodge, Khusi Kapoor as Betty Cooper, Agastya Nanda as Archie Andrews, Mihir Ahuja as Jughead Jones, Aditi Dot as Ethel Muggs, Vedang Raina as Reggie Mantle and Yuvraj Menda as Dilton Dioley.
The promising trailer gave a generation of viewers hope to see their comic book heroes in simulated actuality. However, during the moment of truth, where it becomes the sole responsibility of the directors and the makers to make an impact, they fail in the film, and it turns out to be a letdown.
Suhana Khan, as Veronica Lodge, could not connect to the audience. It felt like they had trained her so much that she lost herself while filming. She is the daughter of the all-time great Shah Rukh Khan, and her character is the most relatable. She is almost living a life like Veronica Lodge.
But it seemed that her shaping up was not on point. They made her into something else. Had they kept her originality, it would have been better for her to deliver her performance effectively.
Then it's Khushi Kapoor, the younger daughter of the late Sri Devi. She did well with her character, Betty Cooper. As a debutante, she tried to make it natural, but the problem was that her dialogues had no punches and were mostly dull.
The biggest fizzle was with their intonation. Proper life-like gestures or expressions were pathetically missed. The whole thing looked more like a dull reading completion.
Now, both of their love interest, 'Archie Andrews,' played by Agastya Nanda, was a big-time bummer with his acting. Unlike his grandfather Amitabh Bachchan, he could not pull out that 'loverboy charm' that had always been an essential part of being Archie Andrews.
Apart from them, a few others saved the day with their amazing performances. The very first one is Vedang Raina as Reggie Mantle. He is a complete outsider to the tinsel industry but managed to outshine his other co-actors with more illustrious backgrounds.
Next comes Mihir Ahuja, who, as Jughead, was phenomenal. They have opted for the Cole Sprouse version of Jughead as their inspiration, and he has excelled in it.
But unlike others, he was not new to the camera, and that's why he caught the attention of the audience. The other leads, Aditi Dot and Yuvraj Menda, were splendid. The best cast has to be Alyy Khan as Hiram Lodge, the serio-comic millionaire.
The finest part of the movie was how it was organised. It had a good screenplay, and the most amusing fact was the setting. It brought the retro vibe and kept that original frame of 'The Archies'.
Unlike the Western version, this movie had a nice uptake in the genre. They maintained the feel-good and rom-com vibe of the comic throughout the setting. This version is only watchable because of how meticulously they matched and patched all those tiny little details to make it look more like a clip from the '60s.
It starts from the colour palette of the houses and shops in Riverdale to the costumes of all the casts. Everything was beautifully planned and looked very thoughtful.
The film has many flaws, and perhaps because of Zoya Akhter as the director, the level of expectation was very high. The actors, in most cases, look more like novices than professionals.
Although, as a musical, the movie painstakingly tried to remain honest to the genre, and they made it as polished and symphonic as possible. But still, the movie needed some acting to fit in the audience's expectations and demands, which it sadly lacked.
This article describes the point of view of an ardent Archie fan who felt the fan needed to respond and retaliate after witnessing its improvisations and distortions.
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