Movie Review: 'ROBOT'

Finally. Special thanks to everyone who made the movie such a "must-watch". 
But here's a list of special thanks I'm compelled to convey:


Swanand Kirkire - Dialogues & Lyrics. The man translated "sperms" into Hindi. I can't just remember what it's called for the life of me. And I don't even want to google it. Paagal anukaran. Incidentally, that also sums up the gist of this entire review I am about to write: Mad Robot.


Manish Malhotra - Costume Designer. I think it's no ordinary feat to make any girl in the world look like Rakhi Sawant. He managed to make Aishwarya Rai look like her. Through the silk gowns, one could still see the "tyre" around her tummy as she monotonously gyrated in the deserts and some animals in South America. But your costumes successfully hid the huge paunch of Superstar Rajnikanth. Bravo. 


Jasmine. - Friend. Best Friend. Thank you, Jas Sparrow, for once again reminding me that PG Wodehouse and Shankar (Director of the film) are doing a service to depression prone maniacs like us: making us laugh continuously for over 3 hours is not a small thing. At any point you want to watch this film again, I want you to know, I am waiting for your call. Always.


Okay, going forward with the review I have decided to write come what may.


First of all, this is the second time it has happened with me that I retain the same look at the first scene of the film, and even at the last one. It first happened with 'DELHI 6'. My look that time was: "What's this? Where am I? What's happening?!" 


In 'ROBOT' it  was simpler: "Ha ha ha ha" -- as I saw a robot, apparently walking right out of that recent Panasonic commercial, that was the first scene... or may be it was from that IBM commercial where robots are serving tea-coffee in an IBM office. Jesus, it just proves that Indian Directors was being "inspired" even while surfing TV. 


I've never laughed so much before. Rohit Shetty and his Golmaal films have serious competition.


Anyway, here's the list of films Robot is accused of copying:
Matrix
Terminator
I, Robot
SpiderMan
Pirates of the Caribbean
some robot commercials
some "All-out" and other mosquito repellent commercials


Please note that the list is definitely not exhaustive.


Okay, cut to the chase. After the first 4 minutes, I decided to change my seat. The man sitting next to me was a South Indian. And as we all know, SuperStar Rajnikanth is a god down South. I didn't want him to beat me up, lest I offend him by breaking into a laughter in a "serious" scene. 


I wonder why SuperStar Scientist Rajnikanth was making the Robot. The robots were actually serving tea and coffee around him anyway. Could it be that he blotted reality for over 10 years and started disregarding the daily and obvious nuances around him? And can I get a job like him? A scientist who gets served tea and coffee by cute robots and is paid well enough to drive a Mercedes? His boss, the villain, drove an Audi, by the way.


So back to the story. SuperStar Scientist Rajnikanth makes a Robot intending to serve the nation and replace soldiers. Here's the technical specification of Robot:


1 Robot = 100 male species of human beings


But it is rejected by the Jealous Boss, whose approval is essential somehow for the army guys to have it. Jealous Boss says it is a mindless machine. A general can command the Robot to kill another general. He knew what it is to live in a country with Hindu-Muslim issues. So SuperStar Scientist Rajnikanth decides to inject feelings and human emotions inside the Robot. He also injects LOVE. Love has made a fool out of many a human beings, what the hell is a robot going to do about it... Anyway, the plot thickens.. 


If you look at it, the trouble started when Rai starts PDA - Public Display of Affection - by regularly hugging and kissing the Robot. So the Robot grows a .. [edited text] .. and gets [edited text]... Read, falls in love.


Somewhere down the line, the competition for Rai's affections is sparked between our SuperStar Scientist and Robot. It ends somewhere when the Robot asks Aishwarya why she prefers the Scientist. "Is it because of sex???" Can't believe he actually asked that. She replies, "Sheeeesh."


The Scientist takes the Robot for a display to the Army, finally. The Robot puts a rose on top of a grenade. Suggesting mankind to fall in love with Rai. 


The Scientist dismantles his creation, in fury, and dumps it in the dumping grounds of Chennai. Jealous Boss retrieves it out of there and lets all hell lose. 


By the way, in order to impress Aishwarya, the Robot actually promises to get the same mosquito to apologise to her, who'd bitten her. Believe it. My oh my, the Robot can also speak mosquitoish. The bold mosquito**** tells the Robot it would apologise on the fulfillment of three conditions (and am laughing while writing this).. two of them were, it wants to taste AB Negative Blood since it is very "yummy" and the second was that Robot had to stop companies manufacturing mosquito repellent stuff.


****Proof of Boldness of Mosquito:
Rajnikanth: "Who was it among you, who bit her?"
Bold Mosquito: "Yeah yeah, it was me, what will you do? I have even bitten the Chief Minister!"


But this was the sweet Robot, before being "polluted" by Rai. The cold Robot is the one who goes on a destruction rampage, thanks to the insertion of a chip that looked like a red simcard, by the Jealous Boss. Now, the evil Robot has one and only one purpose. I'll translate that in English: make love to Aishwarya and have pseudo robo-sapiens. God knows if that Jealous Boss was sadistic or what.


He clones, he fights, he manufactures robot sperms. He is all, all is him. And as he fires the entire Chennai city cops, he says one dialogue. Two words: "Happy Diwali". The background score breaks into a robotic/ robosonic, "two point oh... two point oh..." The SuperStar Scientist sure has lot's to do, before robo-sapiens are born and start calling Aishwarya, "Amma" in the same robotic/ robosonic tone.


Special thanks to A R Rahman for the noisy score which drowned my echoes of laughter and claps.