We ended up watching Ra.One last evening after a lot of contemplation. Though we knew that it wouldn't exactly be an intellectually stimulating movie, we thought it would still give us a reason to have a good laugh with friends. So did we have a good laugh?.. I wouldn't answer that right-away, but it definitely inspired me to write my first ever movie review!
The film starts with an imaginary scene where Shahrukh, a game super-hero has to save Priyanka Chopra by fighting the three 'Lee' sisters and then the main villain Sanjay Dutt. The three sisters were called Iski Lee, Uski Lee and Sabki Lee and Shahrukh had to do nothing to kill them since 'Ladkiyan Uspe Marti Hain'. Now, that was when I almost knew what the rest of the movie would be like - silly and low IQ!
Shahrukh is playing Shekhar, a nerdy south-Indian video game developer whose character has an overdose of bad caricature - he keeps messing up, gets slapped by women and can't even park his car without banging into ten other cars (and we always said, only women were bad drivers). He tortures you with his overacting while trying to get into the south-Indian's character, conveniently losing his native accent whenever he wishes. In one moment. he acts like a stupid moron while mixing cud with spaghetti and eating it with his hand and simultaneously boring everyone with his 'quotes', and then suddenly gives super-cool dance number in the song 'Criminal' at the launch party of his new video game, 'Ra.One' where he created the most powerful villain ever. It's not like we don't like Bollywood Masala movies. But Ra.One is a movie that treats the audience as if they are retards and will laugh only at stupid and 'crotchy' jokes.
Things happen, Ra.One comes out of the game to find Lucifer (Shekhar's son Prateek's gaming name), who was the last one to leave the game half-way without getting beaten. He finds Shekhar, kills him and then gets after his son. Out of the game comes G.One, our good superhero with the face of his creator, Shekhar, to protect the child and his mother, sexy Kareena who has decided to move back to Mumbai. Just when I thought the movie was getting sensible, intense and in sync with the theme, I was reminded I was watching a Shahrukh Khan film! Even before the mother and child got enough time to grieve Shekhar's death, the director came back with a silly scene of a gay airport agent getting turned on with G.One's body piercings and then a fight sequence at the Mumbai airport which would have been much better without the stupid humorous interferences. The fight was followed with a brief Rajni Kant cameo where he was playing our dreaded super-hero 'Chitti' and had come to give some words of advise to G.One. The purpose of this scene nothing but to draw crowds in southern theatres. The rest of the movie is about how G.One protects the family from Ra.One with a predictable and rather boring climax.
It's sadly ironical that we were treated like an audience with zero IQ while watching a movie based on artificial intelligence. Anytime the movie got a little serious, we were interrupted by some cheap humor by the nosy south Indian neighbor Satish Shah or some melodrama between the G.One and Kareena/ Prateek. The action sequences are rather few and copied. Even in the sequence where G.One has to stop a Mumbai local train that has lost control, he needlessly indulges in some comic moments. By now I was so upset that I actually did not even enjoy my favorite song 'Chammak Challo'! And let me tell you a little secret here, that song was actually at a kid's birthday party (with the scantily clad green hot babes in the background) - non sense, right!
Arjun Rampal's entry was out of nowhere and despite playing the 'title role' so to say, had nothing more than a few dopey and cliched dialogues. The director did not even do justice to his six-packs (for which he would have worked out for months) because we barely saw them for a minute! Kareena looks hot, but the character has no depth.
The film has been 'inspired' by several hollywood movies like Iron Man, Spider-Man and Terminator 2. There were some blatantly copied scenes (One of them being Dalip Tahil playing Tony Stark while introducing his new game in a lavish style in the midst of some hot dancers, hard to imagine right :)) . I mean I did expect some 'inspired' scenes, but even those did not do justice to the theme of the movie. Though the plot was ambitious and could make a good movie with a better director, the film had nothing in terms of intensity and grip and thoughtful cinematography. The action sequences though few were not bad but the caricatures, the cheap, mindless and crotchy jokes and the melodrama were unbearable. Shahrukh overacted even while playing an android and managed to include his usual arm spreading scene even with this character!
It's not like there haven't been worse movies (Robot was far worse, couldn't even watch it on TV), but that does not justify continuing to make mindless movies.
It's not like there haven't been worse movies (Robot was far worse, couldn't even watch it on TV), but that does not justify continuing to make mindless movies.
My Verdict: The movie is a big disappointment, with an endless list of unnecessary elements and lacking all the ingredients of a good action packed super-hero movie. Frankly speaking it is an insult to our intelligence and not worth spending our hard-earned money on. It is going to come on TV soon anyway.
Dear Shahrukh,
I was never a fan of your acting skills but had great respect for your impeccable business sense. And now I know that you had to spend so much on the marketing of this movie because you exactly knew how bad the movie was. I guess you would manage to recover your money but please stop treating us like we are retards without any theatrical sense. You do have a charm, but those open arms cannot embrace us forever!
