If you’re wondering how “Slumdog Millionaire,” an Indian film with Indian actors playing Indian characters directed by a British director, won over its Hollywood rivals as Oscar best picture, then wonder no more as the film is finally being released here this Black Saturday on the big screen, where it should be seen and not in the pirated copies that have been circulating since last year.

The movie is about a poor boy from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal Malik (played by three different actors from childhood to adulthood). He has just won 10 million rupees in the quiz show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and the film starts with some cops torturing him and asking him how he was able to give the right answer in all the questions asked of him. The film indicates the four possible answers to this question: a) He cheated, b) He’s lucky, c) He’s a genius, d) It is written. In the end, you’ll find out which is the right answer.

Jamal is supposed to return to the show the next night for the continuation of the contest. But the show’s host Prem Kumar (famous Bollywood star Anil Kapoor) cannot believe how this poor uneducated boy can answer all the questions correctly without cheating, so he connived with cops to torment him into confessing how he cheated. For instance, how would Jamal know the answer as to what a Hindu gold holds in it right hand when he is a Muslim.

Jamal tells them he didn’t cheat. He reveals how he learned to know the answer to each question. All of them have something to do with his past. He was a boy of seven (played by the adorable Ayush Mahesh) when their mother was brutally killed by Hindus who hate them. How did he know that the picture on an American hundred dollar bill is that of Benjamin Franklin? When he was 13 (played by Tanay Hemant Cheda), he gave a $100 bill to a blind beggar he used to know as a child and the blind boy told him it’s Benjamin Franklin.

The series of flashbacks showing Jamal’s back story is the touching heart of the film. Aside from Jamal, there are two other recurring characters in it, his older brother Salim and the girl he has always loved, Latika. Both Salim and Latika are also portrayed by three different actors. The romantic element between Jamal and Latika holds the film together and makes it an endearing love story as we keep on wondering if they’d have a happy ending when Jamal keeps on losing Latika each time he finds her anew.

One of the film’s most entertaining (and yucky) moments was how the boy Jamal got the signature of one of Bollywood’s most famous stars. The name of this star is the answer to the very question when he joined “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” The scene where he gets locked inside the toilet outhouse as the big star arrived on their shantytown shows his creativity and great fighting spirit as such an early age.

There’s nothing in the past films of Director Danny Boyle that is like “Slumdog Millionaire,” from the dark comedies “Shallow Grave” and “Millions” to the zombie flick “28 Days Later” and the boring sci-fi flick “Sunshine.” It’s his most famous work, “Trainspotting” (1996), that has one scene, Ewan McGregor diving inside a dirty toilet bowl, somewhat similar to the outhouse scene of the boy Jamal in “Slumdog.” But “Slumdog” is a real crowd-pleaser.

The film concludes with a fabulous Bollywood song-and-dance number that is brilliantly conceived and executed. After all the hardships that Jamal and Latika went through in the story, it’s a fitting finale that makes you leave the theater in good spirits.

Too pompously serious superheroes in ‘Watchmen’

As a comic series that ran in 12 issues from 1986 to 87, “Watchmen” got much praise and there have been several attempts to film it before. But most filmmakers were daunted by the challenge since it’s really hard to make its transition from sprawling graphic novel to the big screen. Zack Snyder, the director of “300,” now finally comes up with the film version and you get the palpable feeling that something was lost in translation.

The movie starts with a mysterious killer murdering The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of a group of costumed superheroes called The Watchmen. The year is 1985 and Americans are worried about the possibility of a nuclear war with the USSR. Pres. Richard Nixon (Richard Wisdom), who is on his fifth term, has made the Watchmen illegal, except for Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a scientist who became a super being after a nuclear accident and has since become America’s ultimate weapon against nuclear warfare walking around naked with exposed genitals.

Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley of “Little Children”), a vigilante who wears a mask that is marked by inkblots, continues to wage his personal war against criminals and investigates the killing of The Comedian. He suspects that there is really a plot to kill superheroes like them. The other Watchmen are Adrien Veidt (Matthew Goode), previously known as Ozymandias and now a very wealthy businessman obsessed with Alexander The Great and who works with Dr. Manhattan on a plan to save humanity; Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), previously the Night Owl who now misses flying his trademark vehicle called the Owl Ship; Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), formerly Silk Spectre II and now Dr. Manhattan’s girlfriend and assistant; and Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), Laurie’s mother known as Silk Spectre I.

We think that as a viewer, you’d be able to appreciate the movie version better if you’re already familiar with the comic series, as the movie seems to have been made with the “Watchmen” fan in primary consideration. It would really be nicer if you already know each of the characters and their respective back stories. Those who are seeing the material for the first time will find the exposition through the numerous flashback scenes quite tedious as it bogs down the film’s narrative flow. Granted that the flashbacks give the film and the characters more depth and insight, the director was not able to integrate them all seamlessly in the movie, making it run for a messy and boring three hours.

The director opts to re-create the dark gloomy look of the comic books and tries to be faithful to its source, but it’s the structure that is really unwieldy. Those who think that “Watchmen” is the usual unpretentious superhero movie will be disappointed as the superheroes here are definitely not at all the conventional type but are too pompously serious for comfort. There are some action scenes but they’re few and far between.

If there’s one thing we appreciate in the film, it’s the soundtrack that includes songs like Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A-changin” and Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.”