A sudden cry for help sends Amna (Arisha Razi) dashing at lightning speed. Her mission: to get dahi (yoghurt) from the neighborhood shop for a next-door auntie. With super speed at her disposal, she is back before her image fades; her task over in a zip.

Since the events of the last film when our hero kids Amna, Saadi (Zuhab Khan) and Kamil (Bashar Amir Shafi) thwarted Baba Balaam (Fahim Khan) and his gang of supernaturally-augmented thugs led by Tony (Ali Gul Pir), the cries for help in Roshan Nagar have changed dramatically. With no crime left in the city (other than those from badly-placed product placements — but more on that later), the only villainy left is the shortage of electricity and water.

Because our heroes cannot take down corruption, government agendas and mega-corporations (the last, in particular, for fear of unwittingly closing doors for any future sponsors for the filmmakers), their only choice is to lie low, and be bored to death while trying to fit in.

While Amna runs errands for aunties, Saadi has become an outsider in his class because of his uber-genius intellect. Kamil, on the other hand, is aloof to what others think of him and deliberately uses his abilities to cheat in cricket (he is chased off by his buddies, but I don’t think he minds that). Out of the three, he still enjoys using his gift even if he has no baddie to beat up.

3 Bahadur: Rise of the Warriors has an engaging question at its core. But it is lost in poor animation and a sell-out to corporate sponsorship

The quintessential question in 3 Bahadur: Rise of the Warriors (3B: RotW), purportedly the final installment of the series, is then: what good are super powers when they are no good to you?

Granted there is definitely a solid answer by the climax, one feels that the decision to culminate the series was half-heartedly made. In consequence, the movie feels indecisive, rushed and inelegant. Opening with a loud, unprompted aerial skirmish between two flying women, the story (by screenwriter/animation director Kamran Khan) is desperate to expand to a bigger playing field than Roshan Nagar.

These magically endowed brawling women come from a far-off dimension that has been under an extraterrestrial horde’s threat for generations. In that realm, supernatural conjuring gives two chosen warriors a 10-year tenure to fend off the aliens, before passing on the torch.

One of these warriors is Erma (Mehwish Hayat), who wants to extend her lease at the end of her stint. Babushka (Nimra Buccha), the one in-charge, knows that Erma is up to no good. The two fight all the way over to our dimension, pulling our young heroes into their conflict. Soon, Erma gains Amna’s trust while Babushka seeks help from Deenu Chacha (Behroz Sabzwari) — the supernatural caretaker of our world, who gave the children their powers.

Erma and Amna’s relationship is the brightest highlight of the story, mixing aspects of fascination, idol-worship, sisterhood, emotional hurt and vengeance. Unfortunately, exploring the dynamic between the two leaves little room to develop Kamil and Saadi.

The screenplay itself is a little uneven, hastily introducing high-flying plot points while wrapping up loose ends in mock conversations. Worse yet, the production tries to shoehorn product placement within scenes. Every now and then one sees a packet of chips or a plate of ‘tasty’ biscuits in the hands of our Bahadurs. The problem is there aren’t any identifiable brand logos on them, making one ponder if a product placement deal fell through at the last moment.

More worrying was the inclusion of Dettol Warriors (a superhero cartoon brand) into the narrative; this particular exercise reeks of two words: sell out.

[Spoiler Alert!] — After the movie’s climax, the 3 Bahadurs officially become a part of Dettol Warriors — as if the franchise was sold off to the sponsor. While obvious product placement is still a necessity in Pakistan, I see no reason to destroy a franchise’s credibility because of sponsor pressure.

Alas, I already know the answer to this: would the children and their families in the audience be any wiser to corporate dealings within films? No. But that doesn’t mean one should go wild with the idea. As if that compromise wasn’t enough, one has to digest 3B: RotW’s fluctuating production quality.

Lighting, though better than the last part, fluctuates between being too hard or too flat. The quality of animation is more or less the same (one notices that Pakistani animators still work on Key Frames, and there is little to no In-Betweens or other refinements). The character models, with exception to the principal cast, are rudimentary at best; in fact, one can actually see low-quality jagged edges on the supporting characters.

On a technical note, I can understand the necessity of employing lower-quality models; the lower the quality, the faster the rendering. However, the inconsistency of quality and design — especially when the 3 Bahadurs stand in front of the Dettol Warriors — is appalling.

With so many missteps, by the end of 3B: RotW one feels more worn out with the franchise than Creative Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Kamran Khan. A better decision would have been to wait one more year, rethink the plan, rewrite the film and properly end the franchise on a grand swan song.

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 23rd, 2018