By Archana Anandakrishnan

 

India’s most expensive movie to date, Bollywood’s Badshah as superhero, cool special effects, international crew (featuring Tom Wu and Akon to name just two who were roped in), a scene with superstar Rajinikanth. Yet none of these save the day for Ra.One. Or should I say G.One?

 

Daddy Shekar Subramaniam’s aim in life is to please son Prateek and be best buddies with him. He doesn’t care if his son is put off by his bad table manners, or his popular quotes of Indian leaders for any situation. But he is ready to do a Michael Jackson to impress sonny dear. And the morally good father even makes a video game, super-villain Ra.One, as per his son’s wish. It is when this video game villain comes to life and wants to finish the game with Prateek, that the kid realizes that Indian movies releasing on Diwali should always have the good man winning! (Spoilers? C’mon, what else did you expect? I would rather spoil it than let you go watch this movie!)

 

Now Shekar you see, is a Tamilian married to a Punjabi living in London. And I hear only ‘aiyos’ and bad Tamil amongst Hindi speaking pickpockets on London streets. What a pity ! Thankfully, the movie shifts to Mumbai soon. But why do all this? Can’t we make a cool video game here at home? If you wanted to make a realistic movie, I bet you wouldn’t have chosen the theme of gaming stars coming alive without a strong script.

 

That brings us to the plot. The idea sounds good in a line: Video game characters come to life and create chaos. But, in order to convert that into a full-fledged movie, Anubhav Sinha needs to know that some homework is required. For those who didn’t know, Anubhav Sinha’s previous movie includes Dus and Cash. No wonder Ra.One turned out this way. And director/producer/script writers, please take a physics 101 course, and then think of directing a sci-if movie.

A sci-fi theme is sure to attract a lot of kids. Now why in the world would you show so much vulgarity, skin and bad dialogues to such an audience? You will know what I am talking about when you hear that Chammak Chalo was meant to be at a kids party! Indian movie makers seem to have taken their audience too much for granted.

Shah Rukh has made a fool of himself. Be it the Tam Shekar or the robot G.One. Shekar is a Tamilian who can’t speak Tamil properly. (If Akon could sing Hindi lyrics decently, why can’t you do your job as an actor?) G.One is a superhero with neither the powers of his villainous counterpart, and nor the brains equal to the kid Prateek. All he can do well is romance Kareena and mouth emotional dialogues. Kareena is her usual useless, overacting types. The only few enjoyable moments were Ra. One, the super villian. Be it Tom Wu or Arjun Rampal, it was a delight watching them (even if it was only for a few minutes).

SRK tweeted a few days ago: Watching the first copy of Ra.One…Damn! realised yet again I have made a love story…a lov story between me and my dreams…

 



SRK, I also heard in some interview that you wanted to build hygienic toilets for women around India. You could have spent you money wisely on that. At least you would have retained some of your female fans!

 



Archana is one of the PopcornCousins:  http://popcorncousins.wordpress.com/