Action Replayy

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 5th November, 2010
Time : ~140 minutes
Director & Co-Writer : Vipul Amrutlal Shah; Co-Writers : Aatish Kapadia, Suresh Nair; Music : Pritam
Starring : Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Om Puri, Kirron Kher, Neha Dhupia, Rannvijay Singh, Rajpal Yadav, Sudeepa Singh

Take "Back to The Future" (a classic). Attempt Indianisation via heavy dollops of unwanted emotion, inane dialogue, silly characters, logical flaws and a ludicrous ending. And you get some idea of the angst I feel after having watched this film.


Aditya doesn’t want to get married to his girlfriend as he feels marriage leads to terrible things. Case in point are his constantly bickering parents, Akshay & Aishwarya. However, when on their 35th wedding anniversary they seem to be on the verge of splitting up, he suddenly cannot digest it, he rushes to his girlfriends grandfather’s place, gets into his time machine and travels back in time to try and make sure they love each other when they get married. Sounds illogical ? It is…


All characters are shallow, a horrible stereotype without any depth or likeability. Each person seems to be wearing floral, psychedelic colours and were denims even in existence in India in 1975 ? The shoddy animation in the beginning and slapstick ending ruins the film completely and the rather simple plot is stretched and stretched till our sanity is close to breaking point.


There is too much emphasis on looks, camera angles and clothing rather than the script. In the edit (quite a few jumpy cuts in the film, BTW) they seem to have forgotten simple things like what is it that Aditya tells his parents & grandparents to become friends with them and start living with them ? At the end there is a reference from each of the grandparents, while bidding goodbye to Aditya, saying they will miss him, miss his constant compliments but we never saw him interact with them or compliment them !

Akshay’s transformation was mildly interesting though his overall look was terrible. Aishwarya’s make-up looked odd but still looked good. And while Aditya showed some breeziness, the film struggles as a whole, purely due to script and edit issues. Neha looked good.


The sad part about this film is that with a little more effort, it could’ve been brilliant. In its current form, it is highly irritating…its a shame that 25 years after Back to The Future we werent able to make a film that could even come close...time for me to do some time travel and watch it again !

Robot

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 1st October, 2010
Time : 180 minutes
Director : S Shankar; Co-writer: Sujatha Rangarajan, Karky Vairamuthu; Music : A R Rahman
Starring : Rajni, Aishwarya, Danny Dengzopa

You must only watch this film if you have a thing for Rajni or Aishwarya or special effects. My rating is purely driven by the latter two but if I’d used the principle of negative marking, then after deducting points for weak characters, weaker story and ditzy dialogue, the overall rating would also have been negative. But then, as most fans of Rajni say, if Rajni is there, who needs a story !

Rajni is a scientist who’s spent 10 years designing an android robot and succeeds (sources of funding not clear at all). He does it while ignoring the ample charms of girlfriend, Aishwarya. However, when she meets Chitty (the Robot’s name, a Rajni look alike), her anger vanishes and she is totally charmed. And so is the Robot. In an interesting development, and one which I wish had been developed better, the robot falls in love with his creators girlfriend and starts to compete with him for her attention. Thanks to a lightning strike, he also develops feelings and during an army testing scenario (apparently the purpose for which he was created), he starts spouting poetry instead.


Rajni, extremely upset, breaks the Robot up into pieces. Evil scientist / competitor, Danny, picks Chitty up and makes him whole again and also makes him a destructive machine. The evil Chitty now begins to hatch revenge against Rajni, kidnaps Aishwarya, blows up half the city and kills half the cops. What will happen next ?


I’m not even going to go into story flaws. They’re just too numerous and I could fill 3-4 pages just on them. The enjoyable moments, while not enough, are definitely quite a few. The first fight scene is really comic and entertaining, especially the whole angle of ‘Devi Ma’ and the women ululating. The song ‘Naina Mile’ made more sense in the film than just the video, particularly the shots of the inner portions of the Robot coming alive. Some of the locales were stunning with special mention for the desert scenes in the first song (along with the water bodies, it looked out of this world). And of course Machu Pichu, though, why they were singing ‘Kilimanjaro’ there, beats me.

The special effects at the end (in a very long drawn out climax) were fantastic. The different formations done by the robots were truly visionary, imaginative and never before seen in the best sci-fi movies.


With a little bit more effort, better structuring though, this movie could’ve become a worldwide phenomenon. It had one of the biggest stars of the Indian film industry, the world’s most beautiful woman and some brilliant special effects. With just a little more vision it could’ve been brilliant. As of now, it’ll have to just settle for being above average, but only just…

Raavan

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 18th June, 2010
Time : 140 minutes
Director & Writer : Mani Ratnam; Music : A R Rahman
Starring : Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Vikram, Ravi Kishen, Govinda, Nikhil Dwivedi, Priyamani
The lack of a coherent story, a weak script, wafer-thin characters and unexplained relationships are counter balanced by some of the most beautiful locales you’re likely to see within India, some stunning camera-work and an Aishwarya who looks better than anything she has in the past 3 years (and yes, I am hopelessly biased on the last aspect, so you’ve been warned) !




Abhishek is a guerrilla warrior, lives in jungles, amongst the tribals. He kidnaps the new SP (Vikram’s) wife, Aishwarya to settle some scores with him. He intends to kill her but instead becomes mesmerized by her. They travel from hideout to hideout, with Vikram in hot pursuit, aided by trusted lieutenant Nikhil Dwivedi and a forest tracker (Govinda). While Abhishek, has his two brothers, (the elder one is Ravi Kishen) and to assist him. Abhishek soon is openly in love with Aishwarya, besotted by her, unable to think of anything else, asking her point blank if she also feels the same way, questioning her about her husband. Aishwarya will soon have to make a choice, between this simple tribal leader and her policeman husband.



Where the film fails is in building either of the three central characters, giving them any depth, any life, any attributes that we can really identify them. Instead it chooses to give us really broad stereotypes and just leaves us with that. The whole Ramayan angle is also very ham handed, a bit forced. Abhishek’s character is not sufficiently Raavan-ish, the cop husband far from being Ram and even the side characters (Govinda being named ‘Sanjivani’ or the whole Abhishek’s sister being humiliated via the nose a la Suroopnakha), none of it worked



What works is the lush countryside, the amazing ruins, the fine mist / water that surrounds most of the film, the clouds that seem to float mid-air and mid-set and the rivers and waterfalls that seem to be be omnipresent throughout. The innovative camera angles & the play with light and shadow also add to the charm, for example in one of the opening sequences we seem to descend on a boat from up above, only to realise later that it was the viewpoint of an eagle and then moments later we go underwater to track the boats progress. Kudo’s to Santosh Sivan for this.



I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is the best Aishwarya has ever looked, but she sure looks lovely, sensuous, a woman worth chasing. Her acting was fine, but even I found issues with her voice – shreiky, screechy, not matching the sensuousness of her character / her face at all. Abhishek is good, a bit over the top, but maybe that was the character as well, the look, eccentricites, style of talking not really helping to endear him to the audience. Vikram is a bit too stiff, unable to look convincing as the vulnerable husband but coming across just fine as the ruthless cop. Nikhil Dwivedi, Govinda, Ravi Kishen do their bits well, Priyamani looks & does a good job as the sprightly sister.


Funnily enough, I found it amusing that most film-makers go for exotic loaclaes abroad and spend a packet while Mani Ratnam found the most stunning scenery in India itself. I think it’s the weight of expectation combined with a genuinely weak script (plus a farcical, unconvincing ending) that leaves you with an unfulfilled taste as you leave the hall. I would watch it at least once though, just for the visual spectacle, story be damned…