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  Manisha Lakhe

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MY NAME IS CONFUSED

Is it Iron Man? Is it Terminator? Is it Mortal Kombat? After waiting for my favoritest of Khans to show up on the big screen the excitement to see it as soon as possible was understandable. Leaving family and friends horrified that I would want to see it even before them, I sat down to watch it, not even the smell of hot samosas could distract me.

What I e …

MY NAME IS CONFUSED

Is it Iron Man? Is it Terminator? Is it Mortal Kombat? After waiting for my favoritest of Khans to show up on the big screen the excitement to see it as soon as possible was understandable. Leaving family and friends horrified that I would want to see it even before them, I sat down to watch it, not even the smell of hot samosas could distract me.

What I ended up feeling is betrayed. At many levels. This was neither spoof, nor science fiction, nor fantasy. It is a colossal waste of effort, money and ultimately trust. As a fan you trust SRK to know his audience. He smirks his way through this sham, knowing that people are going to see the film regardless of the reviews.



The pre-publicity material everyone was fed roped in the Thalaivar, as well as Amitabh Bachchan. And Shah Rukh charmingly told us about his favourite superheroes on television. Yes, this fan girl lapped it all up. And by reports theaters are going 100% in ticket sales.

But when it comes to cinema, the Shah Rukh Juggernaut comes under its own wheel, alas. In wanting to do more, the movie Ra.One fails its audience on many levels. The story is so muddled, you begin to see unintentional humour in dialogue like, 'Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai!' ('what is going on!') and 'I don't understand what's R.One, G.One, I just want to go back to India' (The dialogue is in English and we tittered in spite of ourselves).

SUPERZERO THIS G.ONE



You like the idea of superheroes. They kill bad guys. They rescue damsels in distress. They save the world. Not exactly rocket science, is it? But here we have a complicated universe where there are many rules (that pop up as we go along, which muddles up story). First it's a computer game, so we wonder,is it like Tron? Do people get sucked in? But then the villain comes out of the game in search of a player (Spy Kids 3, anyone?) If he is out of the game, why are we still getting 'This happens in second level of the game' kind of information?

So a nerdy Shekhar Subramaniam with a little orphan Annie wig create a game where the villain cannot die, it learns and adapts as it goes along (Star Trek anyone?) for his brat (confident debut by Arman Verma). The child is rude and Kareena seems to be an indifferent mother because she does not scold her child even once for rudeness. Kareena is such an indulgent wife she allows Shekhar to eat Spaghetti with curd with his hands. The stereotyping of Tams should produce much outrage, methinks. Constantly saying, 'Aiyyo!' is not going to make up for the horrible stereotyping.



If you make allowances for the obvious copying of effects from Iron Man (1 and 2), Batman, even Mortal Kombat, you realise that you don't mind the action sequences at all. Flying cars beings halted mid air, the hero and the villain exchanging fireballs of energy like in Streetfighter (arcade game) or Sorcerer's Apprentice are all fun. Even the reassembling of the body parts into the villain is like Terminator. But you appreciate the effort gone in creating the SFX. It's the rest that holds the special effects together that is horrid. Gay jokes, adult jokes and body part gags are so offensive you wonder what message the kids who see this movie are going to take home. Why also muddle the whole tale by hinting that souls come back and inhabit bodies around you (in this case the body of the good computer gamer?



Arjun Rampal is the hottest thing in the movie despite it being a Shah Rukh vehicle. Shah Rukh seems to be smirking through the role of G.One and we feel no empathy (but annoyance) at his antics to endear himself to Kareena. Whilst Chitti's jealousies are brilliantly explained and handled by director Shanker in Rajinikant's Robot, here the story just collapses. We don't care about Shekhar, not about the kid, nor do we feel bad for Kareena... This movie scores a zero in empathy.



And having Rajinisar's horrid computer generated two minute appearance makes you madder because it does nothing to the story. Characters, songs, emotional moments seem to pop out of nowhere in the film which makes it even harder to watch. Yes, it's a slickly made film. But everyone including the Badshah Khan overdoes it, slipping on the slickness and falling flat on its face. People will buy tickets for this Ra.One, but come away wanting to give a tight one to someone, anyone who made this unpalatable bhelpuri for Deepavali. Someone on Twitter rightly said, 'this is KachRa.One'