We have all seen the media juggernaut and hype built up around this SRK movie from nearly half a year. From the moment I saw the first trailer, I knew this movie wouldn't try to break any new ground in terms of story telling because lets face it, nobody wants to experiment with such a huge budget riding on the movie. I expected lots of comedy and some good cgi effects. I didn't go into the theaters expecting an Iron Man and so I didn't hate the movie. Quite the contrary, I enjoyed it. Also the effort put by SRK to do something different, putting his name on the line should be highly appreciated.
Shekhar Subramaniam is a Tamilian who works as a game developer in a multinational company in London. To impress his son, he programs a game in which the villain is more powerful than the superhero and they both have artificial intelligence embedded in their programs. But due to another new technology by which the waves around us can create solid objects, the villain, Ra.One emerges out of the game with a vengeance to kill "Lucifer" aka, Shekhar's son. Along his quest in finding out who the real Lucifer is, Ra.One kills Shekhar. To save him and his mother Sonia, the superhero G.One comes out of the game and thus begins the story of Ra.One.
THE FLAWS: Lots of low-brow humor which is not in good taste, like G.One spanking Kareena, the gratuitous shots of the female anatomy (I thought this was supposed to be a family friendly affair), Ra.One saying after killing a grandma - "I hate Chinese", lots of pelvic thrusts and crotch grabbing and many others like this. Another flaw is the direction and editing which doesn't gel the story. Hell, even Rajnikanth's "Endhiran" (Robot) had a great flow to the story. The kid, Prateek (Lucifer) is just like any other sheltered rich kid. Beat the idiot and make him understand what is right or what is wrong. Don't give into his every whims and desires! I didn't like the kid's performance one bit. Somebody give him a haircut while giving him acting lessons too.
The message of good always triumphing over evil comes off as ridiculously cheesy. The actors, nor the story could convince me of this message. Many scenes in the movie reminded me of Endhiran (Robot) which is not necessarily a bad thing, but just a little nag of mine. But in terms of special effects and entertainment value, this movie is way superior to that one. We all know Kareena can act wonderfully if the script is right, but here she's reduced to nothing more than an eye-candy. That is very disappointing to the say the least (though I'm not complaining because she's gorgeous and I loved her in the song-dance sequences, and the comedy scenes). In my opinion she got over the death of her husband way too quickly. The villain Ra.One was under-utilized in my opinion. Again, these faults lies with the director.
Lots of people say G.One acquired human emotions too easily and he felt empathy when there shouldn't have been none in the first place. I have to disagree with most of you here. Ra.One and G.One had an evolving artificial intelligence which led them to have emotions and grow their personality. But the writing doesn't actually show this properly. And just because a guy wears cool dark glasses, a black jacket and looks menacing doesn't automatically make him a Terminator or Mr. Smith.
THE GOOD: This is the first of its kind in such a huge magnitude in Bollywood, lets give it some leeway. I hope it paves the way for more intelligent sci-fi/superhero movies in our industry. SRK's acting is really top-notch. He is hilarious as the Tamilian and when the time came to be a superhero, he did good. Many scenes in Shekhar's hometown were completely likable. The special effects were awesome for a Bollywood movie. You can see that they went for the Transformers-esque effect when Ra.One transforms. One more brilliant addition to the movie was the use of guest stars in Rajnikanth (with his trademark ROBOT movie dialogue). Then Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra's scene was straight out awesome in the old Hindi movie style, of the hero saving the day and getting the girl. The fight scenes, every one of them were awesome! What little screen presence Ra.One (Arjun Rampal) had, he was a force to be reckoned with.
And what can I say about the music and songs - they are PERFECT! Loved all the songs in the movie. The climax left a glimmer of hope for a possible Ra.One - Part 2. If that happens, I just hope its more intelligent, well written and Anubhav Sinha is nowhere near it. For the first step in trying to create an Indian foothold in the world movie stage which has now been dominated by Hollywood films, I have to say Ra.One is off to a solid start. It was an experimental cinema woven in commercialism and grandeur production values.
FINAL WORD: It all depends on what you expected from this movie. You just can't expect a DDLJ, nor a niche superhero movie. For what it was advertised - a sci-fi movie where the superhero has a heart of gold, this movie was quite entertaining. To each his own, you just have to watch "Ra.One" and decide for yourself. Just kick back, relax and let go, you may enjoy it.
7/10
Shekhar Subramaniam is a Tamilian who works as a game developer in a multinational company in London. To impress his son, he programs a game in which the villain is more powerful than the superhero and they both have artificial intelligence embedded in their programs. But due to another new technology by which the waves around us can create solid objects, the villain, Ra.One emerges out of the game with a vengeance to kill "Lucifer" aka, Shekhar's son. Along his quest in finding out who the real Lucifer is, Ra.One kills Shekhar. To save him and his mother Sonia, the superhero G.One comes out of the game and thus begins the story of Ra.One.
THE FLAWS: Lots of low-brow humor which is not in good taste, like G.One spanking Kareena, the gratuitous shots of the female anatomy (I thought this was supposed to be a family friendly affair), Ra.One saying after killing a grandma - "I hate Chinese", lots of pelvic thrusts and crotch grabbing and many others like this. Another flaw is the direction and editing which doesn't gel the story. Hell, even Rajnikanth's "Endhiran" (Robot) had a great flow to the story. The kid, Prateek (Lucifer) is just like any other sheltered rich kid. Beat the idiot and make him understand what is right or what is wrong. Don't give into his every whims and desires! I didn't like the kid's performance one bit. Somebody give him a haircut while giving him acting lessons too.
The message of good always triumphing over evil comes off as ridiculously cheesy. The actors, nor the story could convince me of this message. Many scenes in the movie reminded me of Endhiran (Robot) which is not necessarily a bad thing, but just a little nag of mine. But in terms of special effects and entertainment value, this movie is way superior to that one. We all know Kareena can act wonderfully if the script is right, but here she's reduced to nothing more than an eye-candy. That is very disappointing to the say the least (though I'm not complaining because she's gorgeous and I loved her in the song-dance sequences, and the comedy scenes). In my opinion she got over the death of her husband way too quickly. The villain Ra.One was under-utilized in my opinion. Again, these faults lies with the director.
Lots of people say G.One acquired human emotions too easily and he felt empathy when there shouldn't have been none in the first place. I have to disagree with most of you here. Ra.One and G.One had an evolving artificial intelligence which led them to have emotions and grow their personality. But the writing doesn't actually show this properly. And just because a guy wears cool dark glasses, a black jacket and looks menacing doesn't automatically make him a Terminator or Mr. Smith.
THE GOOD: This is the first of its kind in such a huge magnitude in Bollywood, lets give it some leeway. I hope it paves the way for more intelligent sci-fi/superhero movies in our industry. SRK's acting is really top-notch. He is hilarious as the Tamilian and when the time came to be a superhero, he did good. Many scenes in Shekhar's hometown were completely likable. The special effects were awesome for a Bollywood movie. You can see that they went for the Transformers-esque effect when Ra.One transforms. One more brilliant addition to the movie was the use of guest stars in Rajnikanth (with his trademark ROBOT movie dialogue). Then Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra's scene was straight out awesome in the old Hindi movie style, of the hero saving the day and getting the girl. The fight scenes, every one of them were awesome! What little screen presence Ra.One (Arjun Rampal) had, he was a force to be reckoned with.
And what can I say about the music and songs - they are PERFECT! Loved all the songs in the movie. The climax left a glimmer of hope for a possible Ra.One - Part 2. If that happens, I just hope its more intelligent, well written and Anubhav Sinha is nowhere near it. For the first step in trying to create an Indian foothold in the world movie stage which has now been dominated by Hollywood films, I have to say Ra.One is off to a solid start. It was an experimental cinema woven in commercialism and grandeur production values.
FINAL WORD: It all depends on what you expected from this movie. You just can't expect a DDLJ, nor a niche superhero movie. For what it was advertised - a sci-fi movie where the superhero has a heart of gold, this movie was quite entertaining. To each his own, you just have to watch "Ra.One" and decide for yourself. Just kick back, relax and let go, you may enjoy it.
7/10