Trailer
 Music Video: Chammak Chhalo |
 Music Video: Dildara |
 Music Video: Criminal |
Story:Goofy gaming expert, Shekhar Subramaniam (Shah Rukh Khan) wants to be a super hero for his son Prateik (Armaan Verma). But his young son, like all young sons, thinks super villans are more cool. So Shekhar creates the ultimate clash of good against evil by pitting a very powerful anti-hero Ra-One against a seemingly less potent good guy. But can the good guys ever lose?
Movie Review: Rajnikant's Robot may have pre-dated it, but Ra-One does manage to hold despite the larger-than-life quality of Rajni's antics as Chitti. Here, Shah Rukh Khan does the train walk sideways and he does it rather well. And if that is not enough, the two desi sci fi heroes have a split second encounter on the streets of Mumbai, with Rajni saar showing off his flying googles act and SRK replicating it with elan. Twin Rascals!
Ra-One works on several accounts. First because it has some interesting clashes betwen G-One, the good robot(Shah Rukh Khan) and Ra-One, the bad robot, who can take the form of anyone he wants. Secondly, the bond that G-One develops with the family he is supposed to protect, Kareena and her young son Prateik, is warm and winsome. There is also a lot of wit thrown in here and there in the screenplay, specially when the film concentrates on the geeky and loving Subramaniam's family dinners. And finally it is the excellently sung and choreographed Chammak-Challo number which keeps the mercury rising to unprecendented heights.
The film falls back in the emotional quotient. Understandably, robots have no feelings, but remember, even the steely Terminator managed to have a very special relationship with the mom and her messiah son. Also, considering so much money has been poured into the film, the special effects and the hi-tech gadgetry lacks the glitzy feel of Hollywood sci-fi. In some places, it even gets somewhat tacky with all those flying cars hurtling into nowhere and the digital game screen going gaudy in orange.
Small quibbles, actually, since Ra-One is sure to usher in a crackling Diwali at the box office and give the audience paisa vasool entertainment, with fine performances by both Shah Rukh and Kareena. Even young Armaan is efficient. Go have a blast.
Movie Review: Rajnikant's Robot may have pre-dated it, but Ra-One does manage to hold despite the larger-than-life quality of Rajni's antics as Chitti. Here, Shah Rukh Khan does the train walk sideways and he does it rather well. And if that is not enough, the two desi sci fi heroes have a split second encounter on the streets of Mumbai, with Rajni saar showing off his flying googles act and SRK replicating it with elan. Twin Rascals!
Ra-One works on several accounts. First because it has some interesting clashes betwen G-One, the good robot(Shah Rukh Khan) and Ra-One, the bad robot, who can take the form of anyone he wants. Secondly, the bond that G-One develops with the family he is supposed to protect, Kareena and her young son Prateik, is warm and winsome. There is also a lot of wit thrown in here and there in the screenplay, specially when the film concentrates on the geeky and loving Subramaniam's family dinners. And finally it is the excellently sung and choreographed Chammak-Challo number which keeps the mercury rising to unprecendented heights.
The film falls back in the emotional quotient. Understandably, robots have no feelings, but remember, even the steely Terminator managed to have a very special relationship with the mom and her messiah son. Also, considering so much money has been poured into the film, the special effects and the hi-tech gadgetry lacks the glitzy feel of Hollywood sci-fi. In some places, it even gets somewhat tacky with all those flying cars hurtling into nowhere and the digital game screen going gaudy in orange.
Small quibbles, actually, since Ra-One is sure to usher in a crackling Diwali at the box office and give the audience paisa vasool entertainment, with fine performances by both Shah Rukh and Kareena. Even young Armaan is efficient. Go have a blast.
Anyone, who has written about India [ Images ] in the last 10 years, will probably tell you about the 'two Indias' -- one that is leaping and bounding towards the future, eager to embrace everything that is new and the other that continues to be tied down by archaic traditions, refusing to adapt.
One wouldn't be entirely incorrect if one says the same about Shah Rukh Khan's [ Images ] Diwali [ Images ] release Ra.One.
Starring Khan alongside Kareena Kapoor [ Images ] and Arjun Rampal [ Images ], Ra.One, on the one hand, has special effects that no Hindi movie can boast of so far, but on the other, it is saddled with an almost 1990s-style treatment with songs popping out of nowhere and dialogues that make you cringe.
Even as Shah Rukh Khan flies over buildings, jumps over cars and even stops an out-of-control train with his bare hands, his valiant efforts to wow his audiences somewhat fail thanks to a weak storyline, some rather juvenile acting and a poor screenplay.
To make matters more unbearable, the dialogues go from bad to worse and Vishal-Shekhar's music -- barring a couple of numbers -- has little to offer in a film that could have possibly ushered in an era of science fiction cinema in mainstream Bollywood.
In a sense, Ra.One is a modern-day retelling of Frankenstein. A young boy (played rather well by debutant Armaan Verma) tells his techie father Shekhar (Shah Rukh Khan) to create a super-villain (played by Arjun Rampal), who isn't just evil but also invincible. The nerdy father, who heads a gaming division of a company, gives him just that not realising what he's unleashed upon the world.
Ra.One, you see, is a video game named after the antagonist in it who, because of the artificial intelligence programme (and a process too complicated to understand) designed into him, manages to break out of the virtual world and step into our world.
Needless to say, much havoc ensues and Shekhar's son Prateek manages to find himself in the eye of the storm and on the run from his evil nemesis who can take the form of anything he sees or touches, quite like T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
The allusions to popular sci-fi movies don't end here. There's a bit of Bicentennial Man with Sonia (Kareena Kapoor) falling in love with G.One, the boy that has the face of her dead husband and protects her and her son from a seemingly inevitable end. And there's even a hint of Matrix with trench coat-sporting characters cricking their necks before delivering punches.The list can go on but what makes Ra.One such a drag is that through all of this, you're never once able to relate to any of the characters in the film let alone anything else.
Sci-fi movies do require a certain willing suspension of disbelief, but the makers of Ra.One demand a heck of a lot more. They seem to expect their audiences to take a blind leap of faith and hope that the charisma of one of India's biggest stars manages to hold the movie together.
Sadly and somewhat predictably, it doesn't.
Ra.One is one long disjoined chain of events and scenes that aren't just half-baked, but also lackadaisically connected with the seemingly sole purpose of being able to show the (almost) 46-year-old actor performing some breathtaking stunts.
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