Directed by Roshan Sethi, “World’s Best” is a vibrant children’s musical set to a simple beat. Eighth grade calculus prodigy Prem Patel (Manny Magnus) wants to be as cool and confident as his rapper father Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who died of cancer when he was five. I’m here. Prem’s mother Priya (Punam Patel) takes pride in raising a mathematician, but when Prem puts on his father’s gold chain necklace, his father magically appears and reveals the school’s Until I inspired him to rhyme at a talent show. “I am a remix of fantasy and memory,” Suresh says with a laugh. I would choose Hypeman or HypeGhost.
Suresh used to perform in the ’80s, but he wears ’90s Timberlands and worships ’80s hitmaker Doug E. Fresh. Perhaps a genius boy can calculate the rate at which nostalgia flattens out time? It harmonizes with emotional and comedic details such as being done.
Still, we’re here for Hype Williams, filmed in a five-sided cube with a fisheye lens and subtle percussion clattering in a classroom (imagine the sound of a pencil hitting a retainer). It’s for music built from an homage to The rap is great, but the lyrics are tense (“Think Pythagoras meets Dr. Seuss/Square sides to find the hypotenuse”) and the music is flimsy and canned. I think Sethi wants to emphasize that these little things are fantasies, but the overall effect is too phony. What works is a high-energy, quirky cast who throw themselves into carefree choreography. Magnus in particular is a contagious delight in robbery.
best in the world
PG designation. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Disney+.
