At the outset, let me state that I have not read any reviews
of the movie. I had decided to this as a matter of principle. I have figured
that reading other reviews before penning my own introduces additional colour in
my thoughts and that element of artificiality to my writing. So this review
comes straight from the heart, minutes after I have finished watching SRK’s
much marketed sci-fi offering.
Ra.One is ambitious. That’s the least I can say for
superhero sci-fi attempted by the ever ‘lover next door’ in a country where
nothing but ‘love fiction’ sells. Science or a distant caricature of it hasn’t
been handled well historically by the Indian film maker. And so, let me start critiquing
this movie by declaring this the best ever science fiction movie made in India.
That’s not saying much really. Most previous attempts at this have been made by
incompetent directors on a tight budget or either of those two. In fact, the
only semi science fiction movie which I can think of as a wholesome entertainer
would be Mr.India. But then Mr.India wasn’t so much about stunts as a heart-warming
tale with a lot of children to go. So a comparison isn’t fair.
What I was most curious to find out about this movie is how
good a balance it strikes between Bollywood and sci-fi. Let’s face it; an
outright sci-fi movie can’t be sold in India. It might attract the astute
critic’s standing ovation but that’s not enough to recover the couple of
hundred odd crores that have been spent in making this magnum opus. The multiplex
audience is good enough for a low budget ‘reality bite’, but not this. On this parameter,
I think the makers have done an averagely decent job. The quirky moments in the first half of the
movie involved duplication of oft used situational humour, but was tasteful and
cute for most parts. It served to mask well, the mundane yet necessary
explanatory scenes prefacing the main storyline. Similar attempts in the second
half, though, didn’t go down well with me. Forceful introduction of childish
humour with unnecessary redundancies like a peek-a-boo of Rajnikanth spoiled
the momentum gathered by the action sequences on far too many occasions. The
emotional quotient too was a little high in the second half. All this
distracted the viewer from the main draw of the movie which was its technical
brilliance. The latter half of the movie could have been packed more with high
voltage action. Characters like that of Satish Shah were irritating to say the
least. The overall screenplay was impressive. Songs too were nicely fitted into
the narrative in most cases.
Shahrukh’s character baffled me to a considerable extent. It
seemed confused to say the least. The first half of the movie saw him play an
uncannily childish Tamil computer scientist who could speak fluent Hindi. Too
many clichéd attempts at humour were made. The second half, which saw him in
his super hero avatar left a lot to be desired. Admittedly Arjun Rampal, with
his expression-less face seemed a lot more convincing as a video game character
than SRK who just couldn’t seem to let go of his signature moves even when they
were terribly out of place. Surprisingly though, for those who were
apprehensive about Shahrukh looking the part, he did in fact pull that off
quiet well.
Credit, in fact is due to all who worked on the visual
aspects of the movie. All the characters were presented brilliantly well. The
city backdrop, the flying cars, the collapsing buildings, etc were all done to
perfection. From the technical standpoint, it’s difficult to find flaws in the
movie making. It is of a level that Indian audiences have only known to exist
in movies from across the Atlantic. For this reason alone, the film deserves a
special mention in the pages of Bollywood history.
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