Review: 'Ra.One' is a Damp Squib

Director: Anubhav Sinha
Actors: Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Armaan Verma
Run time: 153 minutes
Certificate: UA

Shahrukh Khan's new film Ra.One is a tribute and a gift to his own children, a superhero version of their father. The film stars big actors like Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and a new little actor Armaan Verma. Shahrukh plays two roles of Shekhar Subramaniam and G.One. Kareena plays Shekar's wife and Armaan plays Shekhar's son (Prateek Subramaniam).

The movie starts with Prateek's dream of his game in which he visualizes his father (Shahrukh Khan) as a superhero. He faces many obstacles, reaches the stereotypical villain (Sanjay Dutt), fights with him, defeats him and saves the damsel in distress (Priyanka Chopra).  It's when this dream sequence ends, that the real story begins. The level of humour is no different in the “real” world - Shahrukh plays a guy who dresses up as Michael Jackson to impress his son, eats noodles with curd, speaks in a Tamil accent and goes on to design and release an advanced video game. His son, who is a tech savvy-game crazy youth wishes that his father would design a video game in which the villain is more powerful than the hero.

The first half of the movie is a visual delight. The second half of the movie meanders a bit, until Arjun Rampal comes in and lights up the screen. Shahrukh Khan fails to maintain his robotic gait. The digital team of the movie is to be blamed for it. Another factor that works against is that its title Ra.One gets its proper footage only in the second half the movie. Ra.One's character somewhere resembles the “Terminator.” The Ra.One- G.One face off is something that is worth watching.

The music of the film is quite entertaining. The song “Chammak Challo” by Akon is a popular chartbuster. On the whole Ra.One can be described as an assortment of the elements of Robot, Toonpur ka Superhero, Spiderman, Terminator and many such movies.

As Shahrukh's movies are incomplete without melodrama, Karwa Chauth comes into the picture, which is not at all required. The movie also has Rajnikanth's guest appearance as “Chitti” which was also a waste as G One was enough to throw the baddies away.

There are certain dialogues in the movie, which are best avoided considering the fact that the movie was promoted as a family entertainer. Its visual effects have raised the bar in Bollywood. A thumbs up to the digital scene where Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai is shown crumbling to pieces after a local train is taken over by Ra One. Kareena Kapoor manages to serve as eye candy and takes her Golmaal gibberish-abusive legacy ahead.

After all the publicity overdrive, the movie definitely does not live up to public expectations. At best it can be considered as an average movie and no more than a one-time watch.

–Jaayesha Obhan
EJ1E-A, Vidyalankar Polytechnic