Movie Review : Ra One

Rating : 3.5/5
Genre : Sci-fi
Year : 2011
Running time : 2 hours 36 minutes
Director : Anubhav Sinha
Cast : Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Armaan Verma, Arjun Rampal, Tom Wu, Satish Shah, Shahana Goswami, Dalip Tahil
Kid rating : PG

RA ONE : SCI-FI MASALA !

Shekhar Subramanium (SRK), a software developer , works for a game developer. He lives in London with Punjabi wife Soniya (Kareena) and son Prateek.To please his son, Shekhar develops Ra-One, or Random Access Version 1.0, a virtual reality game where Ra-One is the villain who cannot be beaten. Ra-One is imbued with artificial intelligence – it is a program that can learn. The good guy is the game is G-One, but he/it is less powerful. In a trial test of the game, Prateek beats Ra-One, and the program humiliated, manages to break out of the virtual world to pursue Prateek in the real world . . .

First, the good : This is probably the best sci-fi Indian film to-date. Sci-fi stunts in the first-half of the film (a dream sequence featuring a long-haired SRK fighting the three Lee sisters : Iski, Uski, Sabki) reminded me of “The House of Flying Daggers” and the later ones weren’t bad either. Not quite Matrix quality, but good, especially the slo-mo pixelization. The virtual reality sequences, sets and costumes were pretty good. There are also some excellent chase sequences like the one where Ra-One follows Prateek and Mom on foot in crowded traffic. Arjun Rampal, who’s lost a lot of weight made a menacing villain. Kareena is adequately flighty (and that’s good), and the film has enough masala to keep everyone entertained.

The bad : The story is ham-handed and sorta reminded me of Schwazanegger’s Terminator series with the mother-son angle. The characters prop up the story, and are themselves card-board-ish, and flat. Direction is average (and I’m being kind) and the screenplay is choppy. Shahrukh in a super-hero costume and a Mohawk is still Shahrukh; he still has the twitchy eyebrows and the dance-y moves, and when he kicks, his kicks go only ye-high. Middle-age is showing. Plus he looks a little goofy in super-hero mode, trying to get into the “super zone” and not quite getting there – I couldn’t resist a smirk every-time the camera tried to take in all his G-One-y glory. Then there were SRK’s wigs – and they were unspeakably ugly. The curly-haired one transformed SRK into a nerd having a bad hair day, and the flowing lock thingy made him look like a King Ashoka with a Fabio hangup.

While I can go on (and on) about why this film is not what it could have been, I have to admit I got what I expected – a decent desi masala entertainer. For starters, Anubhav Sinha is not quite the crème de la crème of desi directors; his earlier ventures include “Cash” and “Dus”, so I wasn’t expecting earth-shaking cinema. Secondly this is a sci-fi flick, which means you can suspend belief (scientific and non)without feeling guilty. And good thing too, because there is not a shred of realism anywhere in this film – it’s fantasy all the way.

As I said before this film is like some giant Bollywood-ian stew : there is emotion, drama, (lowbrow and borderline vulgar) humor, romance, there is Tamil and Rajnikanth to keep the Southerners happy, and Karva Chauth to appease the Northeners, and virtual reality gaming and a child artiste to keep the younger set interested. It’s like SRK and team brainstormed the precise mix of masala to pull in every potential patron, and then built up a storyline to fit everything in. It is colorful and out there, but it’s not very pretty or polished.

Sci-fi doesn’t quite mix with all the other elements of a desi masala entertainer. A better director could have taken it deeper and developed the story and it’s characters in sync. , and I await the day when someone more talented will attempt it. For now, there is Ra-One.

Yes, it is paisa-vasool; I was decently entertained and my kids loved it.

Kidwise : Rated PG because of some scary (to kids) graphics, violence and vulgarity.