Now, how does the Indian Robot size up to its  Hollywood counterparts?

Well, for one this Robot proves its Indianness; no not by being a obedient, loyal and “i will sacrifice my life for my master” but by demanding a salary, going on strike and eventually decides not to do his designated job because he is on holiday.

And being the Indian robot he is, he has emotions as well. This leads the robot to fall in love with the lead actress(none other than Aishwarya Bachan).

Hence this sci-fi movie degenerates to a love triangle a la Ek Phool Do Maali , Sahib, Bebi aur Ghulam. You get the drift?

Also, as opposed to this Hollywood counterparts who have ambitions of world  domination our Robot is driven by two emotions (primarily found in all Indian actors . especially in the 70s), revenge and love.

One of the main failed ploys in the movie, was the confuse the audience by introducing another Robot besides the main one and only reveal in the end that it is human after all. That robot was supposed to laugh, cry, scream for help, kiss, dance and repeat the same in the loop. No Acting was not required.  The audiences  though caught on this ploy quite early since almost everyone is quite aware her (Yep none of the than Aishwarya Plastic Bachchan) limited acting and almost no dancing skills (You have to see her dance in all the songs in this movie).
Moving on, Once the Robot openly declares love; captures his damsel (who he cannot acquire otherwise) and he gives a very important thereom about her (which we prove as follows).

Theorem: “Iske Choonese Robot aadmi aur aadmi robot ban jata hai!” (Translated: By her touch, A robot can become human and human becomes a robot)

Derived Theorem : We can derive from this theorem that if this damsel touches a person multiple-times, that person can switch from human to robot to human to robot… no not infinitely though. This lead to side effects as we shall see.

Proof: To help prove this theorem, we access to the Abhishek Bachchan Acting Chart. (Please click on the image for large size)

Multi Touch Theorem

This complex chart explains how a person’s acting skill suffers after having been touched multiple times by Aishwarya.  Eventually it leads to a  person to overact and then finally become deaf and dumb.

Returning to the main plot, Lets rewind it a bit because i am also lost. So far we this.

1. Super star Rajni creates a emotionless robot for combat in war, which gets rejected because it is emotionless . (Problem 1)

2. Super star Rajni adds emotions, Robot falls in love with his beau (Problem 2)

3. Robot turns Evil and kidnaps the beau(Problem 3)

4. Robot sets to destroy the world (err.. rather a road where you see a Spencers retail and LifeStyle mall) (Problem 4)

5. Super star Rajni is blamed for all the mess. (Problem 5)

At this point, Super star Rajni has multiple problem and as he scratches his head thinking about them. What do you expect?
Atleast i expected,  that from out of no-where, Aishwarya should pop out in her red dress and say in her faux American Accent
” 5 problems ? 1 solution … L’Oreal blah blah ! ”

Instead she just sits, cries waiting for some one to rescue here. Damn!

At this juncture of the movie, The Robot has cloned himself and created a dozen of them ala Agent Smith who work for him.
The real problem begins now. What do these clones do? In the Matrix the agent Smith Clones fight against the One – Neo.
And the One has super-powers to fight them off.
But here, there is no super-power one just our super-star Rajni with  limited-emotions Aishwarya and a bunch of police guys (who are there to get their asses whipped anyways) . Nope not much to fight against.

So instead the robots (clones) to show off their skills create various formations like a human (err.. robot) sphere, wall , line (just like beanstalk which jack climbed) and into a snake that consumes metallic vehicles.

Eventually the movie ends at one point and the robot is dismantled; concluding that such evil emotions are present in all humans; emotions of hatred, anger, jealousy and the robot was just a symbol for that? Well wouldn’t a Deepak Chopra book sufficed ?

Ok now, enough of jokes coming to real review of the movie.
No wait. you are still here? reading this?
Hmmm… You say you are still not going to watch this movie ?
Then all i can say is paint your hair blonde and call yourself “Britney!!”

More than his struggles and efforts (that are showcased brilliantly); the movie describes his entire journey in a comical manner; where Phalke himself is shown to an highly energetic/enthusiastic funny person which is really credible.
This less-than-2-hrs movies has some really rib-tickling scenes and keeps the entire audience engaged through out.
The acting is natural. The comic timing is very accurate. The pace of the movie is great.
The entire cast has really acted well but the movie surely belongs to Nandu Madhav who portray the effervescent Dadasaheb Phalke effortlessly.
Some scenes really stand out like Phalke convincing some prostitutes to work in his film; some random problem disturbing their ultra serious scenes; Phalke’s friends taking him to a mental hospital etc.

All Bollywood movie directors who claim to make funny movies should rest their egos and study this movie very thoroughly to see how real funny movies are made.

The time period of 1911 is showcased very nicely with olden style buses, roads, dressing sense and even olden-style prostitutes . Since there were no bifocals then, Phalke is constantly shown switching between two sets of spectacles and is always confused about wearing which again has great comic timing.

Two dialogues that really standout from the movie (and which will remain golden forever) are:

1. While shooting for a scene for the Movie, one of the assistants mentions that in the background scenery there are some
jackfruit trees and during Raja Harishchandra’s time there weren’t any. the Father of Indian Cinema coolly responds (translated to English) ” Thats all right, the main focus should remain on story-telling!” .
Are you listening Mr. Cameron ?

2. Towards the end of the movie, the English folk want Phalke to move to England to make movies for them where there is enough funding and audience. But Phalke clearly rejects the idea saying (translated to English) ” If I move to England, how will the film cinema industry flourish in India?” which clearly floor even the Gora log.

Enough said, Go watch the movie!

I had the pleasure of seeing this movie during my bus-ride from Pune to Mumbai in the Volvo Bus. After that experience, i have extended the graph as below.

If you have seen the movie and liked it, do others a favor; dye your hair blonde call yourself britney!

“The secret ingredient to the secret ingredient soup, Po is nothing”, He tells Po . Po says “Nothing ?!”
Po’s dad says, ” You have to believe that your soup is special, then it becomes special“

This is what makes this movie teaches.

Po is a big fat panda who dreams of kung-fu and dreams of being an awesome kung-fu master.
His dreams turn to reality when is chosen by mistake to guard a secret scroll against a ferocious snow leopard who is the greatest warrior.
Po’s master albeit hesistant to teach Po kung-fu initially is forced to realize that “Believing is everything” and as Po’s master’s master puts it “There are no mistakes“

The animation and story telling is very good as expected from dreamworks. Jack Black does an amazing job as voice of Po.

When Po meets the snow leopard in the final showdown, the leopard say “I can beat you easily, you are just a big fat panda”. Po responds “I am not a big fat panda, I am the big fat panda !!! “

Now thats confidence from someone who believes in himself !