Film review: 'Creature 3D' fails to create the right dent

Creature 3D
Cast: Bipasha Basu, Imran Abbas, Mukul Dev
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Rating: **

What's it about:

We have seen the posters and the promos, so we know what to expect from Creature 3D. Bollywood's first indigenous creature flick, the film uses director Vikram Bhatt's favorite elements - a hotel/palace in the woods, legendary folklore about supernatural phenomenon, romantic songs, a nauseating police inspector and lots of shrieks and screams. Bipasha plays Ahana, owner of a resort in the woods who has a sad backstory of how she got there. Wanting to start afresh, she hopes the change of place and job might help her start afresh. Little does she know that her quaint villa is going to get attacked by a 10 foot Creature or 'Bramha Rakshas' as we are informed later by Mukul Dev. Newcomer Imran Abbas plays Bipasha's second fiddle making dove eyed passes at her when the Creature is given a break. Most of the film revolves around various camera angles and VFX tricks to try and make the half man-half lizard-alligator species as scary as possible. Unfortunately the effort fails to take off. 

What's hot: 
Bhatt has a knack of using mythology and cryptic mumbo-jumbo to use  Hollywood inspiration and weave it with a desi storyline to create an interesting plot. With Creature 3D he gets the setting right, the introductory shots of the Creature are interesting enough to get your curiosity level up. A lot of attention has been paid to the way this Creature looks. His scaly back, the long nails, green piercing eyes, the tail, most of it is impressive. So props to the talent right who brought it into existence from the drawing board to the big screen. A few scenes use 3D efficiently, especially parts where the Creature's nails reach out for you. 

What's not: 
The moneymaker in the film is the Creature. It's not Bipasha, or Mithoon's music or even Bhatt, everything rides on this CGI species. That's where the film falters the most. While his body might be right, the face and the sounds it makes don't match up to the preview. In a day and age where Hollywood films have made inroads into the smallest towns and TV shows like Supernatural have taken effects to another level, the Creature fails to create the right dent in this market. Also the sketchy storyline with Bipasha and Imran's backstory only makes  matters worse. Dialogues are cliched and add no drama to the storyline. Also barring the Sawan song, music is quite a disappointment. Bipasha tries hard to justify her character but is stuck in a unidimensional world where her eyebrows do most of the talking! Imran fails to create any impression with whatever little he's made to do. 

What to do: 
Creature 3D deserves a nod for attempting something different, yet we hope it had gone all out instead of playing safe and rehashing old formula to create something new.