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King Khan’s super hero movie Ra.One has drawn ho-hum reviews from Indian critics.

Here are excerpts from a bunch of Indian critics:

NDTV

But, on the whole, RA.One is far too derivative to take anybody except the most gullible of moviegoers…

But, sorry, this isn’t ‘the next level’ of Hindi cinema, let alone superhero flicks. At least, let us all hope it isn’t. Comic-strip terminators do have their uses. However, when the idea is to whip up a bubbling brew that, in the time-honoured tradition of a Mumbai mass entertainer, seeks to embrace a bit of everything, the wannabe desi Superman can only fall between two very, very tall stools. But not everybody will hear the thud, though.

RA.One is like a colourful Popsicle that looks tantalising, tickles the palate while it lasts, but leaves no particular after-taste. Sound and fury? Loads of it. Significance? Not much.

Rediff

Even as Shah Rukh Khan flies over buildings, jumps over cars and even stops an out-of-control train with his bare hands, his valiant efforts to wow his audiences somewhat fail thanks to a weak storyline, some rather juvenile acting and a poor screenplay.

To make matters more unbearable, the dialogues go from bad to worse and Vishal-Shekhar’s music — barring a couple of numbers — has little to offer in a film that could have possibly ushered in an era of science fiction cinema in mainstream Bollywood.

Reuters India

Unfortunately, movie-making involves a lot more than just good product placements and marketing. It needs heart, and in spite of the sci-fi theme and hi-tech technology, “Ra.One” doesn’t have heart.

The weak link in this movie is the direction by Anubhav Sinha, your attention will waver a lot — the pace isn’t fast enough for a super-hero action flick and there are some inane dialogues that will make you laugh. Sinha tries to pack in every single element into the film, with the end result being it looks haphazard.

…Also, for a villain supposed to be evil and unbeatable, Ra One is surprisingly colourless and dull, preventing you from investing any sort of emotion for him — he just leaves you cold and Arjun Rampal’s expressionless acting is partly to blame.

IBN Live

…ambitious but flawed superhero film – every time we’re drawn into the simplistic but intriguing story of how Ra.One can only be vanquished by the game’s superhero G.One (also played by Shah Rukh), director Anubhav Sinha feels the desperate need to inject a dance number or a comical sequence or a melodramatic interlude into the narrative. It’s distracting from the superhero theme and more importantly, it makes the film clunky.

What’s missing from ‘Ra.One’ is a sure-footed director’s touch. Anubhav Sinha fails to bring all the elements together, and while this superhero film has plenty sound and fury, it’s sorely lacking slickness.

Economic Times

Shah Rukh Khan’s superhero character takes too long to boot in this science fiction flick. G.One arrives just five minutes before the interval point by when you have already restarted your system several times, which has been hanging into nothingness. And the film’s title character Ra.One, a skeletal villain, gets a face (Arjun Rampal) even later in the second half. Is it worth the wait? Only intermittently and inconsistently!

It’s certainly not a ‘dream’ start for the film with a tacky video game prologue merely to accommodate starry cameos of Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra. Not only does director Anubhav Sinha take too long to arrive, the initial proceedings don’t contribute much to the film either. Too much of screen-time is expended on vulgar jokes and tomfoolery.

Related Posts:
Ra.One Review – A Failure of Imagination

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7Aum Arivu is a silly bore that bizarrely seeks to meld fictional Tamil history, fictional Tamil pride and fictional biological warfare for the sole purpose of bamboozling Tamil movie fans into parting with their real money.

Silly, Lifeless Film

The movie builds on the myth of a historical martial arts fighter and medicine man called Bodhidharma (Surya), who’s said to have traveled from his home town Kanchipuram to China some 1,600 years back and helped villagers there.

It takes about 23 minutes of screen time for Bodhidharma to traverse thick forests, sandy deserts and snowy mountains to reach the Chinese village of Nangyang, cure their sick children and adults from a deadly virus, save the villagers from marauding horsemen, teach them martial arts and ultimately die of poisoning so that the locals may live happily ever.

Anon, we’re back in present day Chennai to endure the tiresome trifecta of a romance between circus artiste Arvind (Surya) and genetics engineering researcher Subha (Shruti Hassan), a malevolent Chinese effort to launch biological warfare on India via street dogs and the genetics researcher’s efforts to revive hereditary talent through DNA (i.e. bring back Bodhidharma’s legendary prowess into the circus artist who belongs to the same lineage).

* The romance is insipid thanks to the poor script, Shruti Hassan’s abominable performance and absence of any chemistry between the lead pair Surya and Shruti.

* The ‘Operation Red’ Chinese effort to launch a biological attack and their intelligence agent/villain Dong Lee’s hypnotism nonsense are unconvincing and border on the comical. Vietnamese actor Johnny Tri Nguyen plays the villain Dong Lee with all the elan of a clown who had one drink too many.

With his head tilted to one side, eyes staring stupidly and walking like an emaciated Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dong Lee lacks the panache of a scary villain but packs the promise of a good Mongoloid Vadivelu.

* The genetic research aspect is absolute hogwash with not one ounce of credibility in it. Particularly, toward the end it descends into the farcical as Subha and her menagerie revive Bodhidharma’s extraordinary talents into the circus artiste Arvind in 12-days.

By the way, the action scenes including the final clash between Arvind (Surya) and Dong Lee were a big let-down. Hopelessly ordinary.

Even by the crappy Tamil movie standards, they were disappointing.

Surya – Decent Effort

We were not bowled over by Surya’s performance but found him mostly adequate by Tamil movie standards.

At least, Surya brought some passion to his performance and didn’t pee all over himself a la Vikram in that stolen trash Deiva Thirumagal.

However, Surya proved disappointing in the crucial Yamma Yamma song.

What a shame, his dejection and anger after being jilted/duped by Subha failed to come through effectively.

Shruti Hassan – Not Kamal Haasan’s Daughter

Say what you will, we refuse to believe Shruti Hassan is really Kamal Haasan’s daughter.

There must have been a mix-up at the hospital. Continue reading »

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