Movie Review: RA.One

With a budget of 25 million dollars, RA.One is the most expensive film in the Bollywood industry. Fascinatingly mixing action scenes, special effects, dance scenes in the purest Bollywood tradition, RA.One is a unique spectacle. Anubhav Sinha is an Indian director. An engineer by profession, he directed several TV shows before moving on to feature films with Tum Bin in 2001. He directed several successful films such as Dus (2005), Tathastu (2006) or Cash (2007).

There are numerous cameos in the film that of Sunjuy Dutt, Priyaka Chopra and Rajinikanth in the role of the legendary Chitti, the character played in Enthiran-Robot. Amitabh Bachchan has also lend his voice to Ra.One. Ra.One was released just before SRK's birthday. American singer Akon collaborated on the soundtrack with Criminal and Chammak Challo.

Shekhar Subramaniam (Shahrukh Khan) lives in London. He is a creative and with his team he has created a video game in which the villain, Ra.One, is stronger than the hero. His son Prateek, a rebellious pre-teen, is fascinated by super-villains.

Shekhar will then follow his advice and create a game in which the villain, RA. One, is stronger than the hero, G.One. While testing the game, Prateek will defeat Ra.One. Unable to bear losing, RA.One enters the real world to take revenge and kills Shekhar. Only the intervention of G.One, designed in Shekhar's image, will be able to save Prateek and his mother.

Mixing "Iron Man", "Tron", "Terminator" and "Matrix", to draw the essential references, Bollywood wants to offer its star Shah Rukh Khan a setting as luxurious as possible. The message of the film is unfortunately still an alarmist and moralizing vision of the progress of science.

Its scenario anticipates that 3D computer-generated images will soon be tactile holograms, and imagines the worst for their applications to the video game industry. Kids want increasingly violent games, and without morals, to let off steam.

They like bad guys more than heroes, so the scenario imagines an ultimate villain who does not accept that the game is interrupted, who would leave the game to continue the fight against the young player, in reality!

This alarmist vision threatening us with the dangers of evolution for gamers is accompanied by a treatment that is far too naive, to which SF geeks will have a hard time granting their sympathy.

And yet, the hyper dynamic production, with clever eccentric framing (in the style of superhero comics) serves the action effectively, as much as the spectacular special effects. The photography, always more colorful (kitsch?) than in an American blockbuster, reinforces the "nice" side of the story (despite a few deaths that are crueler than usual).

The editing is therefore very energetic, the rare scenes without fast-paced action are either dance clips or lively sequences, following the rhythm of the music anyway.
There is no boring passage, humor, romance, action, suspense, follow one another in the most perfect mess!

The sets are impressive. First located in London, the film shows us gigantic buildings, and monuments characteristic of the English capital (like its Tower Bridge for example), then the story makes a detour to Mumbai in India, and shows us as many (the airport, the train station, a beautiful villa), before returning to Great Britain.

The most worked costumes are obviously those of the two characters, superhero and super villain, taken from the video game. Their elaborate looks mix several influences, Iron Man and Tron for the hero G-One, Matrix, Spawn and Magneto for the villain Ra-One, embodied by several actors throughout the film (he imitates appearances by transforming his hologram).

There is a lot of SFX, which goes from synthetic doubles, to 3D extensions of sets, passing by cars thrown in the air, Shah Rukh Khan running along a train, or throwing energy balls, a sci-fi universe of video game with air motorcycle, Terminator-style impacts on virtual men, or holographic interfaces of computers.

So we find a lot of effects, sometimes they are synthetic images but at the level of video game animatics, sometimes just optical tricks based on green screen.

Shah Rukh Khan is an actor who always gives his all, whatever the role, comic or dramatic, he offers the best of himself to his audience. Here again, he plays both the clumsy anti-hero father like Darry Cowl, then the virtual superhero in scenes that are alternately humorous (and often pathetic), or spectacular (action for which Shah Rukh Khan has once again bulked up, showing off muscular "chocolate bars", which few forty-year-olds can deploy!).

Actress Kareena Kapoor is more amazing in comic grimaces than in romantic scenes. Let's note a cameo by Rajnikanth, the actor playing Roboga in "Enthiran", totally useless to the story but amusing, and showing the impact of this already cult film.

The child is endearing, and a good performance by an actor of his young age is rare enough to be noticed.

A strong point of any self-respecting Bollywood film, the music does everything it can to amaze the gallery, between its heroic melodies, and its techno-pop pieces sung and danced, only it conveys more emotion when it allows itself to traditional tunes, than when it tries to be too modern.

There are several things that work in Ra.One. First of all, the interesting fight sequences between G.One and Ra.One, then the warm relationship that G.One forges with the family he is supposed to protect. The screenplay is often full of panache. The song Chammak Challo is excellently acted and choreographed. Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor give good performances, and even the young Armaan Verma is effective. The film sags in terms of emotional quotient, and the special effects, despite the huge investment, are less brilliant than those made in Hollywood.

Superhero G.One's aim is not to save the world, and his antagonist Ra.One's is not to destroy it. Their motives remain either sketchy or too tepid to justify their actions. Ra.One largely doesn't feel like a superhero film at all. It's more of a bizarrely crafted Bollywood recipe to please everyone: a dash of romance, a dash of Salman Khan-esque comedy, a dash of Shah Rukh Khan-esque narcissism. But fans of such things may be disappointed.

Moviegoers will be packing the theaters for two main reasons: Shah Rukh Khan (who is unconvincing as Subramaniam) and the special effects. No surprises: Ra.One has both, and in large measure. The effort deserves full marks, and that was to be expected. After a year of relentless hype and anticipation, audiences are eager to see if the film is worth all the hype. Watch Ra.One: The noise was necessary.

SRK loves action films. Since Kuch Kuch Hota Hai he has been interested in thrillers, so much so that he created Red Chillies VFX, within Red Chillies Entertainment, to take care of the special effects. During the promotion of the film, Shah Rukh said he wanted to involve the younger audience who might lose interest in Indian cinema in favor of Western cinema, and in particular American cinema, which is more spectacular and boasts bigger technologies and budgets.

Ra.One, even if it cannot be considered the first science fiction film made in India, is certainly a novelty. The special effects are very accurate and surprising, especially the assembly of the hero carro, Ra.One, played by the good and handsome Ajun Rampal, really well done and funny. Between chases, fights and choreographic pirouettes of cars thrown into the air, however, the Bollywood soul resists, which is what makes the film special.

Shekhar Subramaniam's family life, and that of G.One who takes his place, is as important as the action scenes and is portrayed with the same creativity and attention. Lighting up every frame, once again, is Shah Rukh Khan whose ambition is matched only by his talent. Big blue eyes and irresistible dimples, it's not to be missed.

To conclude, "Ra-One" is a moderately successful incursion of the Hindus into the superhero genre. If they still have progress to make to go beyond simple references, to digest them instead of just spreading them out, and to truly create their own modern myths, they certainly have the means to achieve their ambitions, and there is no doubt that their next attempt will be the right one.