There’s a famous adage which Neil Armstrong said while landing on the moon – “That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind". Weirdly enough, the adage seems to be perfect to describe the message what Prabhas, Kajal and Taapsee starrer Mr.Perfect tries to deliver, with a small twist. In this film’s case, it’s “One adjustment for man, one giant leap for a happy family.” In lot of ways, the film, directed by Dasarath, attempts to re-enact a tried and tested story of a youth whose ideals are in direct conflict with those from the previous generation.

What’s it about : Prabhas stars as Vicky, a free-spirited youth based in Australia. His dream is start his own firm which develops video games. He’s a perfect guy, but there’s one problem – he doesn’t like to compromise and lives life on his own terms. Back home, his parents introduce him to Priya (Kajal) and hope that both of them would get hitched soon. After a series of fights, Vicky and Priya begin to like each other and Priya goes a step further and ends up dreaming of a great life ahead with Vicky. However, Vicky has some other plans for his life. Elsewhere, he meet Maggie (Taapsee) who’s exactly like Vicky in terms of their personality and how she wants to lead her life. How Vicky learns the secret of happiness forms the rest of the story.

What is Good : Family entertainers are a safe bet in every possible way. Apart from that, they are the perfect excuse to imbibe moral values and teach a thing or two about life, love and relationships. The theory applies to both the protagonists and the audience. Mr.Perfect is no different. The film uses almost every trick in the book to awaken the sentiments which end up melting our hearts. There’s a catch; however, we’ll save it up for the latter part of the review. Prabhas and Kajal make a great couple onscreen. The duo’s chemistry is so obvious on screen that they both pull off the first half of the film with great ease. They believe in different things and lead different lives, but when they try to understand each other and respect what they have been doing, it certainly makes a good watch.

Mr.Perfect is a cute love story to begin with. Prabhas has worked hard in underplaying his role and it shows. Since this isn’t the kind of film where he’s allowed to flex his muscles, he ends up concentrating a lot more on playing the nice guy in the family. Kajal is gorgeous in the film and it’s a tailor made role for her. She shines and how! On the other hand, Taapsee makes quite an impression in her role as Maggi. She dubbed her own voice and it suits the role she portrays in the film. Prakash Raj, Nazar, Murali Mohan, Sayaji Shinde and K Vishwanath are apt, although there isn’t much scope to showcase their acting prowess in the film. It’s a Prabhas-Kajal’s film all the way.

What is bad: While family entertainers are a safe bet in most cases, they also fall into the trap of becoming clichéd and predictable. That’s exactly what the problem with Mr.Perfect is. When, at every step of his life, Vicky is reprimanded by his father and other well-wishers to not be so stubborn, you know exactly that he would realize his mistakes sooner or later. The whole film is a well-laid out framework where every possible move is planned out. The dialogues in the film are good; however almost every character makes it a point to hurl them like missiles on our brains, especially those written for K Vishwanath, until the message cannot be elaborated anymore. There are instances where Prabhas’ dialogues, particularly those in English look out of place. The narration is quite slow and there’s too much drag while unraveling a sequence which is already predictable. The second half of the film could have been much better.

Technical Departments : Vijay K Chakravarthi’s cinematography is brilliant. He has captured the vibrant colours so well that it makes a perfect setting for a budding love story in the first half. Most of the outdoor shots, especially in Akasam Badhalaina song, seem like postcards. Marthand K Venkatesh’s editing could have been better in the second half of the film. There are umpteen scenes where Prabhas seems to be too confused about his life and they don’t just end even after establishing this point in one or two scenes. Devi Sri Prasad’s music is good and so is the film’s background score. The second half of the film has too many characters who teach a lesson or two about life to Vicky (Prabhas). As a result, the second half, atleast for the most part of it, seems quite long and boring in terms of narration. Dasarath had a good story in hand and a good team to make a good family entertainer. If only, he had put in some more effort in not making everything so obvious, Mr.Perfect certainly would have been a great watch.

Bottomline : Mr.Perfect has a convincing storyline and neat characterizations for most part. What it lacks is a good screenplay which would have engaged the audience. But then, the interesting thing is, some genres never turn stale and this is one among them. Maybe it’s necessary to learn moral lessons which people can relate to from time to time, however old-fashioned and clichéd they are. ‘Mr.Perfect’ is yet another film which waves the ‘family entertainer’ flag to grab eyeballs. But it’s a film so obvious in its approach that you can foretell everything even in your dreams, because you have seen it kazillion times before. Watch it for Prabhas and Kajal, if you must. At least you can try to ‘adjust’ to make your family happy. Pun intended.

Click here for Mr Perfect Review 2