RaOne is a successful con job. Commercial success will eclipse the fact that the quality of experience is poor and not quite commensurate with the scale of commercial success. My rating on the movie is 2 out of 5.
SRK has a lot on his shoulders. He has to play the role of a clumsy dad with a south-Indian accent, who can also dance like Micheal Jackson for his son, and then sing an item number in perfect Hindi, and then going onto becoming a charming Android. He needs to be ruthless with evil, and the ultimate romantic with the leading Lady. His sense of humor needs to have the a mix of slapstick and crudeness since that seems to really get the crowd going. But he seems to have got them all by their main parts, as the movie keeps focusing on someone either getting kicked there, or catching a fire there, or getting beeped at the security check. Even the little kid soon catches on the trick and tell his mom to use it the villains main part to her advantage.
This movie also tell us that Indian boys as young as 11 can code programs that jump out of the screen to somehow tap into all the electromagnetic radiations around us to turn them into physical matter and then bring it all to life – this really is stretching the concept of matter being electromagnetic waves and particle at subatomic levels. And so, it is apparent to me now that reason why humanity still hasn't cracked AI (artificial intelligence) yet is that we don't have enough 11 year old kids in the Labs. Seems easy to fix, if only we can get all the 11 yo brats to finish their milk all by themselves. It must be pretty heartbreaking for all the Indian moms, most of who are SRK fans, for this new task for their kids – finish homework, come first in class, and program G1 to life.
The movie taps into the ultimate fail-safe formula of using (and perpetuating) the Indian stereotype. Instead of using a Sardar, they use a Madrasi. A South-Indian eating noodles with his hands, and adding curd to it is quite the epitome of thinking that this movie achieves, and gets a few laughs from the crowd too. Disclosure – The thought of it cracked me up a too, but more for the nerve of the director to go ahead with this crude gross joke.
The movie assumes that Indians need to be spoon fed explanations. Everything is over explained, again and again, repeatedly, as if we really wont understand it the first time, till even the people who don't talk in Hindi get it, till all our cows come home. I wrote this paragraph for effects, just to make my point, so that all of you get it too, and by the way it was written in the same style as Bellwood tries to explain the events, by over explaining things. If you still don't get it you can write to me with a subject line as 'Duh'.
It is clear that the film makers are quite proud of their special effects, they keep repeating them so often. With the bombastic claim that the movie has more special effects than Avataar, I guess it became the sworn duty of the movie maker to Honor the vision of the special effects programming coder, who he probably paid by the hour and thus to use as much of that footage in the film, creative integrity be dammed.
This action sequence, in the typical Bellwood tradition, are partly comic and partly 'saving the world' sort of serious. The conclusion of these sequences is apparent to all and the only thing uncertain is the health of your ears when you walk out after listening to the amped up background score on these sequences. Edge of the seat experience may not be there, but it is more than made up by special effects like the appearance of lord ganesha to help the hero stopping a train from wrecking Mumbai.
Then there is the whole marketing circus that happens in before the movie release. Clearly SRK has used his considerable charms to manipulate the whole world, including the professional critics. Mr Taran Adarsh had his moment in the sun too when he became the trending topic on twitter for his rating of 4.5 out of 5 a day before the movie release (through a special preview), most of it negative. Nikat Kazmi gives it 4.5 too. But most other non-professional reviews seem to be giving it no more than 2. My own rating is 2. This wide width in ratings cant be explained in any other way.
But it is Diwali , people want a good time, or as they say timepass. As i walked out, I overhead a disgruntled fan crib, "ye kia sci fi type picture banaya hai
" I guess we get what we deserve.
