Most of us remember the famous advertisement of Surf Excel with the punch line “Doodhte Reh Jaoge”. “The Archies” gives the same “Doodhte Reh Jaoge” feeling to the audience as watchers are left looking for chemistry between the characters throughout the movie.
This lack of “chemistry” reminded me of my often failed science experiments in school lab. So I thought of giving a new twist to my movie review and writing a science practical sheet on it. So let’s review the experiment named “The Archies”
By Zoya Akhtar and Netflix
Name of the Experiment: The Archies by Zoya Akhtar
Experiment |
Observation | Inference |
| Story | Set in the 1960’s the story revolves around 7 Anglo-Indian teenagers in a fictional town called Riverdale. The group of friends navigate romance, friendship and the future of “Green Park” in Riverdale as builders threaten to destroy their legacy | Poor storyline, lacks depth. The main story arc of saving the park was very poor in terms of building curiosity and a compelling tale. |
| Characters | Archies, Betty, Veronica, Mantle, Jughead, Ethel, and Doiley | The characters seem to have very little chemistry with one another making me, as an audience, not really care about them individually and ultimately any conflicts that happen between them. |
| Music | The film has 11 songs in almost two hours. It is an attempt to recreate the jazz music of 50ties and 60ties | Below average music, none of them catchy enough to be remembered or making Insta reels. An attempt to make a musical failed terribly |
| Acting | Agstya Nanda, Khushi Kapoor, Suhana Khan, Vedang Raina, Mihir Ahuja, Aditi Saigal, and Yuvraj Menda tried their best to deliver a good performance.
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Agastya Nanda, the lead of the film is not great but ok. He has the potential to do better.
Suhana Khan’s acting appears forced and overly polished failing to capture the essence of the character she plays.
Khushi Kapoor is slightly better than Suhana Khan but needs to work on her expressions.
Vedang Raina- The best out of all. Delivers convincingly.
Mihir Ahuja- He is good and his chemistry with Dot is better than the lead actor’s chemistry
Yuvraj Menda- Good and fits well into his character
Aditi- She is a delight to watch. |
| Dialogues | Since it’s a story of Anglo-Indian teenagers, a concoction of Hindi-English has been tried. Web series anyway use a lot of Hinglish these days. | Dialogues make for meme material these days on the internet but sadly none of the dialogues of “The Archies” are worthy of it. The dialogue does not support the film’s story. It is completely emotionless. |
| Costume Design and Aesthetics | An attempt to create visually appealing with period-specific costumes. | Commendable job by the stylist costume designer, set designer and cinematographer. |
| Choreography | An attempt to create retro vibes | Good job by the choreographer. The actors have managed to show good dance moves. |
We can only say that Zoya Akhtar’s attempt to try a different format fails to entertain the audience. “The Archies” looked good in comics until it was turned into a movie.