Review: ‘RA.One’- Not your usual SRK film

Zeenews Bureau Shah Rukh Khan’s ambitious film ‘RA.One’ has all the ingredients of a blockbuster film. Thrilling action sequences, mind blowing special effects, foot tapping numbers and SRK romancing Kareena. But yet, inspite of all this, ‘RA.One’ falls short somewhere. In the garb of a futuristic film which boasts of mind blowing special effects, the story remains the same old one and in fact is a mixture of some world class sci-fi films. So in the entire film, one can find traces of ‘Terminator’, ‘Biccentinial Man’, ‘Matrix’ and amusingly, our very own ‘Robot’. The plot is pretty simple. On the behest of his son Prateik (Armaan Verma), Shekhar Subramaniam (Shah Rukh Khan), the geeky gaming expert creates an anti hero who is invincible. Hell breaks lose when the anti hero RA.One(Arjun Rampal) manages to come out of the virtual world and enter the real world. And to protect the mayhem that ensues, G.One (SRK again) comes to protect the world. The clashes between the hero and the antagonist work well. Due to his uncanny similarity to Shekhar who is now dead, Sonia(Kareena), his widow finds herself warming up to G.One. Infact, G.One the robot also develops an emotional and protective bond for Sonia and her son. The film has its moments but they are far and few in between. Some of the scenes are surely entertaining but when one goes to watch a SRK film, one hopes to be entertained throughout, and sadly ‘RA.One’ fails to do so. Music by Vishal Shekhar is splendid. But songs appear out of no where and for no reason as such. The high point is surely the AKON number-‘Chammak Challo’. Director Anubhav SInha falters mainly due to a hollow script. It fails to leave an impact of any kind. For SRK fans, it is a film which has the superstar in a new avatar. Of that of an action star. But somehow, SRK’s loverboy acts surpasses his action hero image any day. Watch it for the special effects and for ‘Chammak Challo’. Don’t expect it to woo you the way other SRK films do, because it isn’t the same. Ratings: Two cheers for this one!