ROBOT reviews - rajeev masand positive - Page 4

First, the story is not remotely engrossing. Remember, the same mis-directing bozo Shankar is also the irresponsible fella behind the story and screenplay.

Second, there's little chemistry between the lead stars Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai, far less in fact than between Rajnikanth and Shriya Saran in Sivaji.

Third, neither Rajnikanth nor Aishwarya Rai, particularly the latter, deliver the acting goods.

Then, there's the gratuitous, self-defecating comedy angle featuring Santhanam and Karunas. Their job in the movie – To get kicked or slippered by the robot or to teach it trash-talk.

All drivel all the time, if you ask us.

Finally, the music and picturization are both mediocre despite trips to locales such as Machu Picchu and provide little cheer.

Tis' no exaggeration to say that a troupe of monkeys would provide better entertainment than the entire Enthiran menagerie.

Asinine, Half-Baked Story
The story, presumably well known by now, is simplistic and amateurish. Scientist Vaseegaran (a bearded, bespectacled Rajnikanth) creates a robot Chitti, which weirdly enough resembles him. Although ostensibly meant for the Indian Army, the robot in real life is busy rescuing naked girls from burning buildings, helping a medical student Sana (Aishwarya Rai) cheat in her exams, cooking omelets and protecting pretty girls in local trains from goons.

Since, Chitti, the robot, is found socially inadequate (it's not smart enough to put a cloth on a nude, bathing girl before rescuing her from a horrific fire), Vaseegaran endows it with human emotions, which makes a bad situation worse. You see, the robot too falls in love with the pretty belle, a situation exploited by a rival scientist Bora (Danny Denzongpa of Bollywood), who is itching to make money by peddling the robot to terrorists. Tragically for the paying audience, each of the various angles (romance, the scientific, criminal, comic et al) is half-baked and bizarrely silly.

If Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan really slammed the script as half-baked (when Shankar approached him to play the lead role), he's one smart dude. Really!

Rajnikanth – Ho-Hum
No, Rajnikanth didn't send our pulse racing nor make our hair stand on end.

Even if his character can deliver a baby of a critically-ill widow of a Kargil soldier, memorize heavy tomes at a mere glance, nab offending mosquitoes that sting his beloved or transmit medical exam answers to his inamorata from a distance.

It's sad that the sexagenarian grandpa gave the okay to this accursed script, presumably for the sake of a few silver coins.

Not for nothing did we, a la the soothsayer in Julius Caesar, yell the Judas warning at Rajnikanth fans a couple of years back.

Aishwarya – Horrid, Horrid
To describe Aishwarya Rai's performance in Enthiran as merely bad would be to subject ourselves to endless ridicule. Because the twit's performance was insufferably horrid.

Absolutely clueless in acting and hopelessly graceless in dancing, Aishwarya Rai's sole claim to fame is her face, and mercifully, since it's starting to show signs of aging we won't have to put up with this Shani of an actress for long.

To see her on the screen, padded tits, affected mannerisms and all, is a most off-putting sight and a trial we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.

We're having a hard time figuring who's the worst actor – this aging twit or her husband Abhishek Bachchan. Her mother-in-law Jaya Bachchan is the only one in her family to spell the acting word right.

Special Effects – No Big Deal
And to those who have the temerity to tell us that the special effects are mind-blowing, we saycome blow us, you schmucks.

The effects are alright, particularly toward the end but still no big deal.

No big deal.

Simply because we've seen better in a gazillion Hollywood films including in I Robot, Terminator, Transformers. All three by the way inspiring parts of this Enthiran junk.

By the way, the fight in the train lasted far too long and turned out to be far too mediocre.

Audience Unenthused
At a theater on the U.S. East Coast, the audience didn't seem too pleased.

We don't blame them. After all they'd forked out $30, braved the bad weather (heavy showers here this evening) and, natrlich, expected to see a miracle.

Except for the customary howls and whistles at the beginning, the people in the movie-hall were mostly subdued. Occasionally, we could even hear chit-chat coming from the middle section.

Say No to Enthiran
Guys, if you value your money, if you value your time and if you value art and entertainment in movies, do not even consider watching this fart of a movie a.k.a. Enthiran.

You don't even have to look too far beyond the patina of the computer-generated graphics to realize this is one helluva stinker of a movie.

We put our head under the guillotine and wasted $30 on this junk so that you wouldn't have to endure agony.

Now, slowly open your middle finger and raise it as high as possible to this apotheosis of trash a.k.a. Enthiran.