In the film, Ranbir Kapoor is advised that to be a true-blue artist and a real rockstar he has to experience pain, which will come through heartbreak. If we go by this theory, most audiences of this film will walk out of the hall as rockstars, since the movie will largely leave them heartbroken. Though Ranbir Kapoor has delivered one of his best peformances so far, the film’s script fails to live up to expectations. While AR Rahman’s music is a plus point, Nargis Fakhri’s performance disappoints.

Imtiaz Ali is known for his old-wine-in-new-bottle brand of cinema. Rockstar is very much engaging as far as it is in that familiar territory, where the director adds a refreshing touch to the regular romance drama. The casual chemistry that he induces between the lead pair through their wacky and eventful escapades has its moments of charm.

A R Rahman’s music remains a formidable backbone of Rockstar, most notably the song “Saada Haq”, the best rock anthem to have come out of Bollywood to date. Anil Mehta’s cinematography is excellent, particularly the shots of the concerts.

Neither a standalone story about the rise-of-an-underdog who becomes the biggest rockstar nor is it merely a love story with a rockstar backdrop. The director somewhere attempts to correlate the rockstar’s rise with his romance but isn’t able to achieve that impeccably. How much ever you try to ignore, but Nargis Fakhri fervently reminds of Katrina Kaif through her looks, acting, lip movements (and seemingly also has the same voice dubbing artist). Nevertheless she is likeable and shares good chemistry with Ranbir. Kumud Mishra as Jordan’s advisor-turned-manager is impressive. Aditi Rao Hydari is confident but marred by a short-lived character. Piyush Mishra makes for an animated-yet-interesting negative lead. And it’s pleasing to see Shammi Kapoor is his last decent cameo.

Imtiaz Ali had a darn good story on his hands but he makes a hash of it in the second half and concludes on a rather predictable note. This story of Jordan rotten ends suspended in a Rumi “field” beyond the right-doing and wrong-doing, where the lovers are forever united.
Ranbir gives cent percent to his character.

Rockstar rocks you but only partially thanks to the star called Ranbir Kapoor.

2.5 Star out of 5.

Welcome to a movie as a gigantic open house. Shah Rukh walks sideways on a Mumbai local train, stops an engine with his bare hands, charges himself with electricity, even slaps his heroine’s butt and grabs her boobs. In between throwing cars at his arch nemesis, recently escaped from a video game; dancing like Michael Jackson, the superhero moves between the digital and real world, London and Chennai, burial as Christian and prayer as Hindu.

Shekhar Subramanium (Shah Rukh Khan), the clumsy, nerdy game developer father of Prateik, lovingly tries convincing his son with, “Allow me to quote….” and quotes Mahatma Gandhi and such like. The youngster is unimpressed, thereby revealing the generation and cultural gap between the two of them.

“Ra.One” is an outright Shah Rukh Khan film.

The way Shah Rukh gracefully slips into the roles of Shekhar, Ra.One and G-One, leaving no room for confusion, is remarkable.

He is the superhero of the film. That’s because the script was skillfully and convincingly put together by Anubhav Sinha, Kanika Dhillon, Mushtaq Sheikh and David Benullo. The dialogues by Kanika and Niranjan Iyengar are good in parts.

The little gimmicks by Sanjay Dutt, Priyanka Chopra and Rajnikant add to the lighter moments of the film but take the story nowhere.

Though the sci-fi concept seems too far-fetched, the director is able to pull it off with visual dazzlery and fast-paced storytelling that the genre demands. The action sequences are thrillingly and credibly choreographed and esp. outstanding is a freeway chase which leads to car-catapulting sequence in a junkyard at the interval point. The local train sequence in the pre-climax evidently brings back memories of Rajinikanth’s Robot. However, the climactic mortal combat in a simulation setup isn’t as much awe-inspiring and reminds of the climax of Ajay Devgn’s Toonpur Ka Superhero.

Another factor that works against the film is that its title character Ra.One is not half as menacing as it claims to be. Not only is Arjun Rampal inducted pretty late in the plot, being an ‘outcome’ of virtual reality he is too shallow and ineffective as the main villain. And while G.One is delightful, it could have been a lot more endearing. While it’s mechanized avatar and emotionless conduct is again reminiscent of Rajinikanth’s Robot, the South sci-fi packed in much more punch thanks to an eventful screenplay as compared to the Bollywood counterpart which relies too much on SRK’s stardom than the script. No doubt then that Rajinikanth’s one-scene cameo as ‘Chitti’ garners more applause than Shah Rukh wins in the whole film.

The film has a very crude sense of humour and surprisingly the dialogues are more vulgar than witty for a film largely targeted at the family audience. With the theory that anything sells in the name of Shah Rukh, you are served with butt-spanking, crotch-grabbing, cleavage-popping, nose-picking, condom innuendoes, gayish and garish gags. While any other actor doing that would have been tagged as ‘cheap’, girls going gaga over SRK would still like to call it ‘charming’ over here. Kareena Kapoor takes her Golmaal gibberish-abusive legacy ahead. Moreover a SRK film seems incomplete without a karva chauth scene or a K2H2 track playing in the backdrop.

Surprisingly, the ever-dependable Vishal-Shekhar’s musical score never rises above the Akon number Chammak Challo. V Manikanandan’s cinematography is effective. The editing could have been better and the film could have been much crisper in length. Since the film was not actually shot using the 3D technology and is merely converted into the format, the effects aren’t really great and one wouldn’t miss much in the 2D format.

Shah Rukh Khan credibly pulls off the G.One part though irritates occasionally as the nerdy South Indian. Despite being a superhero film, Kareena Kapoor is never sidelined and does decent in her part. Child actor Armaan Verma is less cute and more of attitude. He carries an annoyed expression for a major part. It’s a cakewalk for Arjun Rampal to remain expressionless (in his mechanical avatar) throughout the film. The base effect added to his voice makes his dialogue delivery less perceptible. The film offers an apt tribute to Rajinikanth though.

On the Indian superhero scale, G.One is certainly way ahead of its Krrish counterparts but still miles behind Robot. Nevertheless Ra.One qualifies for a ‘one’ time watch.

Endearing Promos, Lovely Songs, Greatly Hyped but unfortunately an unsuccessful attempt by the actor turned Director, Pankaj Kapoor. A simple love story that’s what Mausam could have been. But in order to make it a Love Saga with the twists and turns of anti-social activities has made the Director and the actors to enact something very lethargic piece of art that inspite of being highly melodramatic, fails to touch the audiences’ hearts.
The Promos and the music definitely raised the expectations of the Media, Classes and the Masses. But most of these people have come out of the theatre carrying a bad review of the film. Though the beginning of the movie seems promising but the slow pace of the events drags it unnecessarily for three hours. The story showcases the time period of 10 years in a young boy and girl’s life. How they meet, separate, meet again, again get separated and finally end up marrying each other. As a stated earlier the love story could have been simple but the complications of the anti-social activities and an unnecessary filming of all the terroristic activities has made the plot a complex one. And it definitely does not soothe the viewers.
Shahid Kapoor has tried to give his best shot and his personal attachment with the movie and the character is visible throughout the film, because Mausam has been directed by his father. Sonam Kapoor no doubt has become a fashion Icon for the young generation. And his love for style and fashion is clearly seen in the Scotland sequence. Though the Scotland set up seems a little artificial and unnatural.
Mausam do have some great love moments between Harry (Shahid) and Ayat (Sonam), but unfortunately these scenes are unable to make the audience to stick to their chairs. The movie has turned up to be a disaster for Pankaj Kapoor. But of course the “Office Office” star deserves another opportunity as there is no doubt about him being a talented artist. Well.. I wish him All the Best for his next venture whenever he plans it.