When an aging superstar stakes all his money and reputation on a glossy Super-hero film and starts appearing on every possible television channel to promote it, obviously you have a lot of expectations even before walking towards the theatre. Then as you start walking towards it, you get to hear more stories on the way- about the five years that went into its making; about the guest directors who lent support to the main one; about the world-class technical crew that filmed it; about the international singing icons, who were wooed for its music and about the new level to which it is going to take Hindi cinema.

I guess the one main failure of Ra One is in this huge pre-film hype. Because, when you enter the theatre, you walk in expecting to be blown away by a never-before seen spectacle on silver screen, but unfortunately those expectations never materialize.

The story begins with a London-based South Indian techie geek,(Shahrukh Khan), who develops video-games for kids. He has a lovely Punjabi wife (Kareena Kapoor), who dotes on him and an irksome school-kid (Armaan Verma), who hates him (for being dull and boring!). In order to win over his kid, the techie develops a new video-game, in which the villain Ra One is almost indestructible and the hero G One has to find an ingenious solution to kill him. Extra-ordinarily the virtual villain from the game enters the real world and now it’s time for virtual hero to follow suit to save the game’s creator’s family!

There are a lot of things to praise in this film. Shahrukh Khan is perfect in his dual role – first, as an over-the top South Indian geeky game-developer and then, as the blue-eyed superhero in a blue figure-hugging costume. He brings in the right mix of fun, frolic and fantasy. Ravishing Kareena Kapoor adds a crackling screen presence. Armaan Verma’s long-haired kid is strictly okay and nothing more. Arjun Rampal brings in the right amount of menace into his title-role. The side-cast too does a good job.

Vishal-Shekhar’s music is excellent and especially Akon’s two songs really rock on and off screen. The film shows off technical wizardry (sound, cinematography, special effects and action) of the highest standards.

Now comes the down-side. Batman, Superman, Kkrish, Robot…Ra One reminds us of practically every hit superhero flick from Hollywood and Bollywood. It does not offer anything new from the tried and trusted Superhero formula. It provides the thrills and frills aplenty but while concentrating too much on needless cameos and tech-enhanced special effects, it leaves the main story-line and main characters half-baked. A better editor could have chopped off many needless and repetitive scenes to make it into a leaner, meaner film. The rather bloated, non-stop on-screen action leaves no time for emotional exploration and no chance for empathy.

The most enjoyable parts of this techno-heavy film are not the hi-fi computer-generated super-human action-scenes, but simple sequences delving into the vagaries of human relationships and reactions. Doesn’t that tell us something? Hasn’t every great Superhero tale always drawn its core strength from an enticing interplay of conflicting human emotions? 

Failure to understand and address this point prevents Ra One from rising above the ordinary. It is a sleek and stylish blockbuster alright, but it is also ultimately quite shallow and superfluous. With such rich resources at its disposal, it certainly could have and should have done way better!