First reactions: This review will come as a huge surprise to some of my friends who know that I was one of the greatest admirers of Shahrukh Khan's work back in the day. I will try to be as honest as I can be with this review/rant of a movie from which I didn't expect much to begin with but wanted to check it out for myself what one can do with a questionable INR 175 crore(US$39 million).
The movie experience (VFX): Beginning credits set the tone for any movie. They need to engage the audience from the get go and showcase slick editing and production design. At the beginning of this movie when the titles start rolling, I wondered why such an expensive product (from Bollywood) has such lame titles with lightning and thunder effect. A modern superhero movie with 30's beginning credits? On a positive note, if there are people still figuring out whom the biggest superstar from India is then you really need to be in the theater when Rajinikanth's name appears on the screen at the beginning of the movie and you hear loud cheers and applause.
The rest of the movie is as disappointing as the beginning credits. Right from the first scene where a Gaming company employee explains something about signals, waves, 3D technology etc. to a bunch of people in an auditorium who are as confused as the audience in the movie theater. Shahrukh Khan shows up on screen in the next scene with heavy use of graphics and animation fights three Chinese women and Sanjay Dutt to rescue Priyanka Chopra. I don't understand why the producers spent so much money to hire the best in the business for VFX and come up with such sloppy work. The only thing to brag about was the VFX in the movie and how an Indian movie never had such spectacular computer graphics. The screenplay of the movie is a big joke. Nothing makes any sense. The game design company is destroyed and the game designer dies in a mysterious way on the launch night of their new video game. The funeral service is done and people still don't realize another person from their gaming team is missing. The company head has no clue of the death of his employees. Mumbai's Victoria Terminus is destroyed for no reason; cars fly aimlessly and penetrate through London buses. Songs, dances and vulgar comedy are all over the place. There is no style or sophistication about anything in the movie. In a superhero movie, you tend to root for the superhero. In this case, you just want the movie to end somehow because you just don't care for anyone in the movie.
Man of the moment - Shahrukh Khan: Shahrukh's Shekar character suffers from him trying too hard to be a geeky Tamil game designer. He comes across as neither geeky nor a Tamilian with his gibberish Tamil and terrible hairpiece. He hams throughout the movie and looks just plain shabby. In the superhero character as G.One, Shahrukh Khan is no T-1000 from Terminator 2. Robert Patrick was brilliant in that role. You wonder if Shahrukh is the same actor who we saw work hard on his character and bring out his inherent charm in movies like Swades and Chak De India in recent years.
The others: Arjun Rampal did his best in the title role given his minimal screen time. Kareena Kapoor is confused and lost in the plot. She doesn't know whether to mourn her husband's death or fall in love with a character that comes alive from the game or dance funnily to jarring songs or continue writing her book on Hindi swear words. The kid in the movie, Armaan Verma, is the only one with some kind of characterization. Akon's Chammak Challo sounds good but looks bad on screen.
Verdict: The movie is an exaggeration of gestures and speech from every single actor(?) in "random" scenes may be to justify the title of the movie. The plot of the movie has holes as big as the Grand Canyon. The characters do not connect with each other or the audience on any level. Simply put the movie was missing soul along with several other important elements of a superhero movie. Expensive experiment gone completely wrong. All said and done the movie will still be profitable for the producers as in the case of other disastrous movies like Singh is King, Wanted, Ready and Bodyguard.
The movie experience (VFX): Beginning credits set the tone for any movie. They need to engage the audience from the get go and showcase slick editing and production design. At the beginning of this movie when the titles start rolling, I wondered why such an expensive product (from Bollywood) has such lame titles with lightning and thunder effect. A modern superhero movie with 30's beginning credits? On a positive note, if there are people still figuring out whom the biggest superstar from India is then you really need to be in the theater when Rajinikanth's name appears on the screen at the beginning of the movie and you hear loud cheers and applause.
The rest of the movie is as disappointing as the beginning credits. Right from the first scene where a Gaming company employee explains something about signals, waves, 3D technology etc. to a bunch of people in an auditorium who are as confused as the audience in the movie theater. Shahrukh Khan shows up on screen in the next scene with heavy use of graphics and animation fights three Chinese women and Sanjay Dutt to rescue Priyanka Chopra. I don't understand why the producers spent so much money to hire the best in the business for VFX and come up with such sloppy work. The only thing to brag about was the VFX in the movie and how an Indian movie never had such spectacular computer graphics. The screenplay of the movie is a big joke. Nothing makes any sense. The game design company is destroyed and the game designer dies in a mysterious way on the launch night of their new video game. The funeral service is done and people still don't realize another person from their gaming team is missing. The company head has no clue of the death of his employees. Mumbai's Victoria Terminus is destroyed for no reason; cars fly aimlessly and penetrate through London buses. Songs, dances and vulgar comedy are all over the place. There is no style or sophistication about anything in the movie. In a superhero movie, you tend to root for the superhero. In this case, you just want the movie to end somehow because you just don't care for anyone in the movie.
Man of the moment - Shahrukh Khan: Shahrukh's Shekar character suffers from him trying too hard to be a geeky Tamil game designer. He comes across as neither geeky nor a Tamilian with his gibberish Tamil and terrible hairpiece. He hams throughout the movie and looks just plain shabby. In the superhero character as G.One, Shahrukh Khan is no T-1000 from Terminator 2. Robert Patrick was brilliant in that role. You wonder if Shahrukh is the same actor who we saw work hard on his character and bring out his inherent charm in movies like Swades and Chak De India in recent years.
The others: Arjun Rampal did his best in the title role given his minimal screen time. Kareena Kapoor is confused and lost in the plot. She doesn't know whether to mourn her husband's death or fall in love with a character that comes alive from the game or dance funnily to jarring songs or continue writing her book on Hindi swear words. The kid in the movie, Armaan Verma, is the only one with some kind of characterization. Akon's Chammak Challo sounds good but looks bad on screen.
Verdict: The movie is an exaggeration of gestures and speech from every single actor(?) in "random" scenes may be to justify the title of the movie. The plot of the movie has holes as big as the Grand Canyon. The characters do not connect with each other or the audience on any level. Simply put the movie was missing soul along with several other important elements of a superhero movie. Expensive experiment gone completely wrong. All said and done the movie will still be profitable for the producers as in the case of other disastrous movies like Singh is King, Wanted, Ready and Bodyguard.