Unapologetic "Review" of Ra One..

I'm not a film critic or a reviewer, in fact I'm not remotely associated with cinema, except that I love watching movies (and I do watch a lot of them). Technically I have no credentials to write a "review" so let me just say, this is not a review..Just my thoughts on the hard-earned money wasted on a so-called Superhero movie named Ra One.

The only reason I was excited about watching Ra One was that it was nearly 6 months since I moved from India and I was dying to watch a Hindi movie in a theater but as luck would have it, the place I stay have no Cinemas playing Indian movies. So, when I saw the poster of Ra One in the nearby Cinema, I was justifiably ecstatic.

The reviews of Ra One were average to bad, with an occasional good review which didn't seem too convincing, but oh well. We decided on the 3D version over the normal version and armed with popcorn we entered the hall and was pleasantly surprised to find at least 10 other people there.(The entertaining Kung Fu Panda 2 had a total audience of 4 in the same cinema a few months ago, so this was encouraging)

I came out thoroughly disappointed.

Firstly, the disjointed story line shocked me, didn't anybody watch this movie before releasing it? There were so many glitches in the movie that even me, who is quite unobservant (not fit to be a detective as my husband delicately puts it) could point out more than a handful of issues.

The movie began in an unimpressive fashion with a loser computer programer (SRK) who is a south Indian (Pray why?) and speaks a few weird words that is passed off as Tamil. He has a beautiful wife (Kareena Kapoor) who is researching on galis based on men instead of women (as much as I have wondered why all Indian galis are woman centric, the whole idea of basing it on men is equally revolting. How about not using them? Too naive?). He has a brat for a kid who he needs to impress. The kid loves villains and wants a video game where the villain is stronger than the hero. (hmmm..)

Then of course, the father makes a video game where villain is strong. So strong that the villain can get out of the video game and come into the real world (What? Ok ok willful suspension of disbelief and all that, even if I agree this can happen in a movie..what about the rest). The rest of the story just gets worse. I really dont have the patience to write all that down.

The funny thing is the father dies (Which is not funny at all as he was the only likable character in the whole movie in spite of the pathetic characterisation.) and the son and wife grieves, but get over it before you can say oh!

Even worse is the fact that they replace the father with G one just as easily. So I wonder why the neighbours of their house in India were never informed of Shekar's death? So much so that they assume G one is Shekhar? How come no one in his company's branch in India knew that the employee had died? Even worse why had nobody gone to their office after Shekar died why was the poor chinese guy's body lying unattended for days together? Why oh why was there a coffin and ashes shown?

Also somebody tell me why there were so many obscenities thrown around and vulgarity shown for what is supposed to be a kids movie..everything from the mention of condoms by the kid to an appallingly short dress worn by the heroine with the camera focusing uncomfortably on the legs to the robot G one holding onto Kareena's umm...chest? Not to forget the cameo by Priyanka Chopra duly showing abundant cleavage and legs! (Though you must admit that the whole Sanjay Dutt as Khalnayak was hilarious ..Nayak Nahi Khalnayak hoon mein!)

Overall even great sequences, which the train sequence was to be honest is totally wasted as we are not interested in the movie by then, nor invested in the characters.

Arjun Rampal looks amazing but has no real role, he simply isn't menacing enough as the titular Ra One, I actually wondered why the Chinese guy who played Ra One initially didn't play the character through out as he was the most effective Ra One (Kareena being the least effective playing Ra One in a scene or two)

The whole climax was boring boring boring.

SRK is neither good as G one nor as Shekhar, though he does bring a certain sincerity into some corny lines that make it believable, he is at his worst here. (How I wish he'd take up roles like Kabir Khan in Chak De or Mohan Bhargav in Swades). Kareena Kapoor is wasted, completely and utterly, for a girl who is talented, I wonder what she is doing in movies like these.

Basically when I came out of the theater all I wanted to do was erase the bad memories of this supposed superhero movie!