User reviews

The story isn't something that's totally unique, given many easily identifiable references from various science fiction films already done in the last five years or so, although in some ways most of these films all share common themes and attributes such as heroism, family relationships and the likes. But there were elements that are too close for comfort with what's already out there, and that takes some shine off being something original. For instance, James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day was almost like the guiding light for the emotional centre of the story, with an evil being capable of shape shifting making it its mission objective to go after and eliminate the boy, who is being protected by a weaker version of the digital lifeform programmed for good. And of course there's the mom character (Kareena Kapoor as Sonia) who together form a dysfunctional family nucleus, except that she's not packing any serious muscle, trading mean attitude for more feminine moves on the dance floor.

Then with the recent release of Real Steel, the father-son story arc cannot be more pronounced, and incorporating elements from Gamer, you have avatar control built into this universe complete with the necessity to play out a deadly game, now transpired into the real world. Then when RA.One and G.One got introduced by Shekhar, they each come with a HART device that Tony Stark will probably send his lawyers to order a stop to the manufacture of the full bodied console game for a breach of intellectual property. Elements from The Matrix trilogy provided inspiration for sentient programs in the virtual world aspiring and eventually making it to the real world, but without the deep philosophical leanings, and formed the initial look and feel for the villainous RA.One when Tom Wu took on the role in the beginning (rumoured that Jackie Chan rejected this, and hence the running joke in the movie) complete with shades and black trench coat, before Arjun Rampal took over for the second half.

What's unique though is the creation of the names of the digital characters for the film, and having it named after the villain instead, since Shekhar's son Prateek, aka Lucifer as his online handle, made no hesitation in telling his clumsy, nerdy father that villains are cool and heroes are so passe, that in an effort to reconnect with his son, Shekhar readily convinces his development team to create a villainous character the world has yet to see, and incorporating Indian mythology into it, such as RA.One sounding very much like Raavan (with its 10 heads a metaphor for the identities he can readily adopt and use), while the good guy equivalent becomes G.One, or Jeevan, meaning Life, and made in the likeness of its creator.

Which of course is what forms a heavy dramatic aspect of the story in establishing the father- son, or husband-wife arc when G.One takes it upon its programming to protect Prateek and his mom by extension when RA.One enters the real world to hunt him down and to complete their unfinished business in the online arena. This provides for plenty of emotional wrangling since G.One may look like Shekhar, but possesses none of the mannerisms nor the bad curly hair but blessed with flawless synthetic skin (ok, I wonder how much of the budget went into this facial), so much so that it provided opportunity for an extended song routine which had licensed Ben E. King's Stand By Me to hammer it all in. Shah Rukh Khan plays two roles here which is probably reminiscent of Endhiran, the Rajnikanth blockbuster which was billed as the most expensive Indian film until this one came along, both as the creator and the product, although the innocence of G.One was more similar to SRK's portrayal in My Name is Khan.

Comparisons with Endhiran are inevitable, from certain scenes such as major fisticuffs involving the girl telling the robotic being to renounce violence, and an action sequence involving an unstoppable train which did look more like a summary of Unstoppable instead. Then there's the child like, innocent nature of G.One that makes it quite like Chitti, but I guess to ensure some peace was made before the film was released, this film had the Superstar reprise his now famous role once more in a cameo that overtly acknowledges unabashedly just who is the number one superhero in India. And frankly, Chitti here doesn't do much other than to appear and show who's boss, and the minute he appears, the audience just goes wild, which I'm sure this rapturous response will be replicated elsewhere as well.

So familiarity aside, RA.One still contains some nifty action spruced up by visual effects, although it's average at best for its story given that major ring of familiarity to it, padded like any other Masala offering with cheeky moments, slapstick, and all round promoter of good family values no matter how jarring those well meaning messages may come across. It's not the blockbuster I would have expected in its lack of sophistication in story telling, but no doubt it will ride on the strength of its marketing blitz and SRK's star status to ensure that fans still turn up in droves for its opening weekend.

THE GAG: Ra-One should have been released in the month of April. We could have laughed it off as a 'fools day' gag considering the content, the inflated ticket prices and non-stop TV branding. The average movie goer was fooled left, right and center..!

THE PLOT: Shekhar (Shahrukh Khan) is a video game developer who develops a game that has an unassailable villain so as to impress his villain fanatic son Prateek (Aman Verma).

THE MISSING PLOT: RA-ONE is the villain 'program prototype' in the game which goes on to assume the body of Arjun Rampal from an advertisement poster, in real life. How the villain character transforms into a real life super villain is beyond the average movie goer. RA-ONE , now transformed, is on a Prateek chasing spree, just because Prateek's good at video games. And remember this was not supposed to be a 'leave your brains at home' kind..!

POSITIVE CHARGE: The music needs a mention. It is catchy. The audience love the party dancing. G-ONE (who is the ever predictable counter measure of RA-ONE aka HERO ).

NEGATIVE CHARGE: The outcome of the movie is not convincing. SRK is not SFX material. His acting is his strength which lacked limelight.SFX took precedence in some parts. The script of Ra-One has more pot-holes than that on the streets of Bangalore. Kareena (Sonia) and Arjun(RaOne) lack screen space.

THE WAY AHEAD: There are no B-SCHOOLS in the world that cannot deny Shahrukh an honorary MBA. With the hype he generated for a 6 month period if not more has proved him an expert marketing tycoon. Will the audience be fooled again come DON-2..?? Time will tell. But surely,next time any form of promotional overdose will not work.

SEQUEAL SCENARIO: The movie ends with an invitation for a would be producer of a RA-ONE TWO. But I'am sure as hell that there will not be any sequels for this movie. Remember the 'super hero' audience is 'once bitten twice shy'..!

There was a SMS joke doing the rounds after this movie released - "Entry to Ra.One is free, but for early exit one has to pay Rs.500/-, That's how Ra.One made all the money!"

That SMS I would say sums all of it. Watch at your own risk.

Most of the storyline is a hotchpotch of various movies from Hollywood. Including iron man, mr.beans, spidy and so on.

Though it was earlier meant for kids, there are vulgar jokes, scenes and dialogues that make it unsuitable for kids.

SRK has thrown in all masala thinking of targeting all audience segments, and has therefore been unable to please anyone.

VFX game was strong and it was ahead of Aadipurush.

Best Superhero movie of All time and Thanks to Srk for bringing this Technology to India.

No movie can beat this one in terms of VFX when it comes to Ra. One.

All Time watchable.

This movie deserves more love and support and Srk and Arjun Rampal have nailed their Characters.

Loved it and watched it in theatres my Rating 10/10.

Superhero movies in India will come and go but no one has ever made a this type of Bad-ass Superhero movie like Ra. One in Bollywood.

Ra. One in Terms of VFX in 2011 Will always be tha best Sci-fi movie all time.

It takes a lot of courage to put your money and time behind a story and bring it to the screen. But does it? I have seen many a flick in probably every genre (except perhaps horror), but this movie takes the cake for the worst sci-fi movie ever made.

The film starts off with a lewd and disgusting imitation of south Indians by Shah Rukh Khan. Not only is his acting (or should I say lack of it) hideous, it is insulting and revolting.

This movie is the strongest evidence that people still judge a book by its cover. From the ludicrous display of women as toys for sex, to the abysmal and down right disgusting show of cheap and ill conceived comedy, this movie is a hallmark of errors that needn't be made by film makers.

Shah Rukh Khan in his various avatars during this movie shows that all you need to SELL a movie is sex, regionalism, an extremely popular star cast and an international music artist (yeah Akon, I'm talking about you).

With a plot that you could summarise in less than ten words, and acting that would make a 1 year old seem a worthy Oscar performer, this movie could not have been more worse.

The word disappointing doesn't even begin to show the worth of this movie. It was so bad, I wouldn't even watch a pirated copy.

I wish there was a minus rating available here. Alas!

Sorry srk to not recognised your true effort. One of the best VFX till date. SRK is way ahead of time. In 2011 no one prepared for this kind of awesome VFX. Honestly I appreciate this movie after watch in theatre. If this movie release in 2022 then it will be blockbuster. Story was awesome and VFX steal the show. Arjun rampal done a fabulous job. Waiting for Ra-one 2. Songs are awesome and Kareena Kapoor's charm in chamak challo steal my heart. Let's hope that people understand the what is true VFX in Indian movies. Brahmastra take 10years but srk made Ra-one in copule of years. Love you srk and waiting for your next part.

You don't like Ra. One. Big deal. I love it. It is one of the few movies including Darr, Baazigar, Don, MNIK, Asoka where you will see an amalgamation of two cultures of film making -the east and the west. If Spy kids and Tron are ignored, Virtuosity is the only movie which has a virtual character played by Russell Crowe. And since the characters in the game in Ra. One were self-aware and adaptive owing to the artificial intelligence, the robot plus humanoid acting was to the point. Thesis on cuss words which are actually based on women and their body parts is actually progressive. The sense of humour like crotch jokes is similar to Deadpool. Also a video game character being a superhero is an original origin story which none of DC and Marvel has. The fight scenes are also quite original, and uses mutliple bullet time shots as in Matrix which is justified here and also the end with ten RaOne's is a nod to the mythology where the demon Raavan had 10 heads. The technology is actually possible because of research in Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual and Augmented Reality concepts. For example Google VR and Pokémon Go respectively. Also it has original special effects of cube formation and blasts which are different from IronMan but closer to Dragon Ball. In fact similar special effects are used in The Amazing Spiderman 2 where the character Electro is nothing like in the comics. Adam Sandler's Pixels basically ripped off the concept of Ra. One although it may have been an idea formed out of Wreck it Ralph. The message is quite wonderful because considering the attraction and indifference of kids towards violence in games, movies, TV shows and bad-ass characters is alarming.

What exactly will you accomplish from all the technical jargon, anyway? For example, Matrix Trilogy. Did you even understand what was actually going on? Did you understand a word of the great speech by the Architect in the third installment? Have you done a course on Artificial intelligence and Virtual Reality? How come the AI in Ex Machina starts thinking for herself? How did the robot and the AI in I,Robot acquire intelligence of their own? What is the concept of Skynet from Terminator series? Did you actually believe a radioactive spider can change your DNA and give you superpowers? Do you actually believe a more eligible human like Batman can battle demi gods like Darkseid, Superman, Doomsday? What the hell is wrong with people? Have you watched any episode of the anthology series Black Mirror? Each episode has a futuristic technology that impacts people's lives. That's the sort of futuristic advanced virtual reality and artificial intelligence system of Ra. One the game and it is set in the universe in which people can handle such physically demanding games. Barron Industries isn't even real. It may soon become a reality. The concept of virtual reality is not preposterous. It exists. With recent games like Pokemon. But Ra. One takes virtual reality to another level. There was no explanation needed. Anyway any scope for explanation vanishes with the death of Shekkhar. But the movie is open-ended so they might say something in the sequel whenever it is made. Ra. One is much smarter than its Krrish 3, Enthiraan, Shiva ka Insaaf, Drona, Toofan, Flying jatt, Super singh, Zokomon Mr. X counterparts. Only Shehenshah, Krrish, and Mr. India are good. The mythology poem thing is very apt since it connects the modern technology to our roots. It also manages to give a new look to Raavana and his ten-headed persona whose weakness was his navel. That's what Lord Ram does. One arrow to the navel and bam. It's over. If you were expecting cartoony destruction like in Enthiraan's climax or mindless detruction like in Avengers, then it is only your fault. The CST destruction scene is more realistic than entire Enthiraan movie lol. And remember, once you sell your soul to the devil, his shadow will forever linger on you. Much better message than most mindless Marvel movies except the lovely Spiderman trilogy. :)

Powers of G. One: 1) Invulnerability and invincibility to any real- world physical object/person owing to the not-here-not-there existence of G. One in the real world.

2)Regeneration abilities(like Piccolo from Dragon Ball) because G. One is made up of digital cubes/pixels that appear as physical objects in the real world. This is possible due to the concentration of rays containing data of G. One

3)Levitation(Hancock)

4)High jumps(Hulk)

5)Martial arts(Programmed)

6)Shoot energy balls(dynamic data generated by static data which is G.one) like in Dragon Ball

7)Mind-control

8)Super-strength

9)Advanced AI that adapts itself with human behavior.

10)H. A. R. T

11) Neglection of real-world physics.

Weaknesses: 1)Needs to be charged with electricity(Called lifelines in video games, if you have played one)

2)Only vulnerable to a single bullet that only Ra. One can shoot in the third level. Else G. One can get defeated in earlier levels if his energy level(lifelines) is depleted.

3)H. A. R. T.