Review: World’s Best (Disney+)

By John Corrado

★★½ (out of 4)

Prem Patel (Manny Magnus), the protagonist of the Disney Plus movie World’s Best, is a 12-year-old kid who is so good at math that he takes classes with the high school kids and is a shoo-in for a spot at the Mathlympics.

This knack for numbers doesn’t exactly make him the most popular kid at his middle school, leaving him subject to bullying from the other kids. Even his fellow outsider friend Jerome (Max Malas) abandons him early on to try and join a dance group with a pair of boys who have been held back.

At home, Prem’s single mother (Punam Patel) struggles to balance working and supporting him, with his dad having recently passed away. But Prem sees his shot at becoming cool when he discovers that his late father Suresh (Utkarsh Ambudkar) was an infamous underground freestyler, and tries to his realize newfound dream of becoming a rapper at the school talent show.

Directed by Roshan Sethi, World’s Best mainly unfolds as a coming-of-age dramedy that mixes in musical and fantasy touches. The film’s main conceit finds Suresh becoming an imaginary friend to Prem who gives him advice on how to become a rapper, which leads to several fantasy musical numbers between Prem and his deceased father (whose rhyming motto “the world’s best never rest” lends the film its title).

The film juggles several different elements in this regard, balancing its more grounded coming-of-age story with these fantastical flourishes. Aside from these dream sequences, World’s Best mostly follows the expected story beats, and there is an inherent corniness to some of the material. But the film is kept fairly charming thanks to its energy and heart. The result is a decent family movie that harkens back somewhat to a mid-2000s Disney Channel original, and I mean that in a mostly positive way.

The screenplay, which was co-written by Ambudkar and Jamie King, has enough reverence for classic hip-hop to give the film an enjoyable rhythm, with an original soundtrack that features a number of ear-wormy, kid-friendly rap songs. The film is carried by charismatic performances from Ambudkar and the young Magnus, who delivers a breakout role.