ROBOT - Shankar's Magnum Opus

Rajini here, Rajini there, Superstar Rajini everywhere. That’s what you feel by the time movie approaches its end. For all the ardent Rajini fans it was a roller coaster ride with Rajini's magic flying all over. Like every movie it had its share of positives and negatives and I would definitely like to start off with a brief summary of it.

First of all, hats off to Shankar for bringing Indian cinema in some way or the other, at par with Hollywood. A great plot and a wonderful concept, but then it had a very broken up and scattered screenplay which couldn't hold on the perfect idea that Shankar had in his brain. A little shorter version of this movie would have been much more appealing. It was just like, you have excellent seeds to sow but then you don't know when and where to sow them to reap the best crops out of it. This definitely doesn't mean in any way that his effort has gone in vain rather he has shown the path, a path for the betterment and equalization of Indian cinema with the so called "Hollywood".
Special effects were the USP of this movie and apart from the sequence of Rajini robot saving people from fire in a building, all other shots with special effects were just amazing or in my words "simply awesome". The last 30 minutes just throws all your senses into a frame where you can't argue anymore if India is capable of making high quality cinema with advanced special effects.
So, on the Special effects front i just have two words "Bravo Shankar".

The cinematography was fine and could have been little better. I guess after spending so much they could have extended it a little further and hired Christopher Pop, whom i feel, has given one of the best cinematographic efforts in an Indian cinema so far. The choreography was pretty mediocre and can be neglected as it was never bound to be a key feature for Robot. The worse part of the movie was the songs. Now i have two stands on it. Maybe it was because of the dubbing of songs in Hindi which ruined them or Rahman truly didn't perform up to his standards and then I felt it was a mix of both. It was an addition to Rahman's latest series of underperforming projects and was pretty disappointing. This movie would have been much more perfect without songs which were highly unbearable. The dialogues were pretty fine and it was clearly visible that Shankar has taken personal care that the whole translation and dubbing part goes well and comes out as decent as possible, though i personally felt it could still have been better.

Now comes the part which defines every feature that has been described so far, the performances from the two actors who are considered to be amongst the finest of all.

Rajinikanth, the man with the greatest fan following ever and considered a "matinee idol" by millions truly doesn’t disappoint any of them. Each character out of the hundreds of Rajinikanth in the movie was played to "Dot". But the best of it was that wicked evil laugh of the curropted villain Rajini robot. In fact he displays his true artistry and the magic that has millions under his spell, playing the evil robot. The movie in itself is Shankar's salutation to Superstar Rajini on the behalf of millions of his fans, portraying him in a manner he is so natural at, but this time he has added logic to it too, by turning him into a humanoid robot. Aishwarya played her part well though there wasn't much to do for her.

After watching Robot, one thing which I am sure of is that I have really taken up a great task of starting off with this movie. The reason being, though it was a great piece of work weighing up several aspects, it still was made with a regional touch and wasn't designed considering a global or even an Indian point of view. It was tough to watch it with a critical point of view because it wasn't made for that purpose. Rather it was a perfect example of the typical mainstream masala flick which does have a sense of logic added to it too and thus in a way was never expected to be watched as a critic but as a bedazzled spectator and witness the quality and excellence of Shankar, and the charm and aura of Superstar Rajini.

Overall Verdict: 6.5/10