Ra.One - Review

We went to watch Ra.One yesterday on Diwali with full-blown expectation that the movie would leave its mark on the history of Bollywood industry for generations to come cause this is the first sci-fi movie made on such huge scale with a whopping budget of 175 crores in Bollywood. Shahrukh also made good marketing endeavour by endorsing various brands to promote his film.Just before the release of the movie, video games of Ra.One flooded the market and thus with the craze set, expectation out of Ra.One was huge. We assumed that it would be another groundbreaking sci-fi film after Robot to break records of all-time Bollywood megahits.In our enthusiasm, we invested in watching the 3D version of the film.That the money spent on the tickets was totally wasted soon dawned on our consciousness just as we started watching the movie.


To our disappointment, only 15 minutes after starting the film, it seemed as if the movie was not going to be what we expected. The dialogues were insipid with unsuccesful ticklish efforst made to incite amusement.Right from the beginning as Shahrukh entered the screen in the role of a South Indian scientist Shekhar, who relished noodles with curd and was the creative lead in the game division of a scientific lab, all he did was unnecessarily trying to be funny and look like a joker instead.He was a timid cowardly scientist who with an intent to become hero in his son's eyes embarked on the creation of an all-powerful invincible wicked anti-hero called Ra.One. To combat Ra.One was created a hero with less power called G.One. We were only few minutes away from intermission when finally G.One and Ra.One came out of the box of video game into reality.The first one hour of the movie was spent on showing Shahrukh trying different ways to impress his son, like dressing up in a tight leather garment in a Michael Jackson style, quoting from the Gita, trying to correct Kareena's Tamil and ofcourse creating the villain called Ra.One.


The second half spilled some power-packed action scenes between Ra.One and G.One with special effects no other hindi movie can boast of.I specially liked the crumbling of Churchgate station of Mumbai into a rubble, following the impact of G.One stopping a spun-out train with his bare hands. But sadly apart from the tumbling down of Churchgate Station, nothing appeared innovative or fresh in ideas. The movie was a sad hotchpotch of threadbare concepts collected from Hollywood and Tollywood.Many scenes and sequences, mannerisms of characters would give you a constant reminder of Matrix, Terminator 2 and recent Tollywood Blockbuster Robot. Rajnikanth in his one minute cameo of Chitti earned an applause, but he too was brought out inanely with his one word dialogue "Chitti, Chitti".


Kareena brought some refreshment with her performance in "Chamak Challo" number but Shahrukh as G.One was looking sloppy and horrible shaking a leg, waist and butt to the tune. Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger dancing the same in Terminator triology...I would faint.Debutant Armaan Verma who played the role of Shahrukh's son Prateek delivered a commendable performance.Arjun Rampal took the form of Ra.One for an estimated half an hour only, the other half was played by Tom Wu.According to Anubhab Sinha, Ra.One's director "When we started this film, the idea was can we make a simple film, about a husband, wife and child and then suddenly blow everyone's mind when they start fighting [...] So there were two films in one: the people who like the action...and those who like a family film." Anubhab Sinha should have had understood that the audience doesnot expect a family drama out of a sci-fi movie. You cannot put Baghban or Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam in the same wrapper of Robot. Both fall under different genres and need discrete treatment. Mixing the two is sure going to be a disaster like Ra.One.