Robot Movie Reviews

Whoooaa, what an absolutely thrilling roller coaster ride Robot is. Touted as one of the most expensive films in Indian cinema, the extra long film is totally worth the ticket price, twice over. Starring superstar Rajnikanth, a fact that is announced in giant individual letters right at the beginning, Robot is a special effects spectacular, but with the right mix of song and emotional masala needed for Indian audiences.

Two things...One, it's difficult to conceptualize and execute a film like ROBOT. Two, when Rajinikant's name comes in the credits, one cannot hear anything for the next two minutes. His name is greeted with a thunderous applause, whistles yells and cheers. Such is the charisma of this superstar. Rajnikant is the Boss. The real Badshaah.

Want to see what mainstream Indian cinema actually means? Go, watch Robot. The last 30 minutes of the film are literally the baap (grandmaster) of all make-believe and end up creating a whole new genre of cinema: the `curry eastern' which stands up as a wholesome alternative to the curry western. For Rajnikanth fans, the climax is definitely a sure-fire way to lose your sanity.

Robot, or Endhiran as the original is called, is India’s costliest film. It stars Rajinikanth, arguably India’s most popular actor around the world. The film has been written and directed by Shankar, whose last film with Rajni – Sivaji – was among the top Indian grossers of all time. The film has an ambitious story to tell, that of a scientist who creates a robot that turns rogue. All of these facts have been thrown at us right from the time the film went into production\

The Bad news first: There is no Rajnikanth 'entry' in Robot. The movie cuts to chase directly, opening with Rajni working in a laboratory on a robot and gets on with business. The Good news: The film more than makes up for it with the mother of all Indian movie climaxes, where Rajni is King Kong, he is the Incredible Hulk, he is Iron Man, he is a Transformer, and he is the Anaconda. He is everything you have seen in special effects laden Hollywood flicks.

If Robot the film was a person, it would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Parts of the film are superbly entertaining – the scale is spectacular, the story is ambitious and the special effects are impressive. But parts, especially in the second half, are so needlessly stretched and cacophonous, that you’re just waiting for it to end. Still, I strongly recommend that you see Robot, to partake in writer-director Shankar’s prodigious imagination and to revel in the sheer force

At the start of this film, after the presenter's name (Sun TV's Kalanidhi Maran), and before the film's title (Robot; Endhiran in Tamil), the screen screams out letters in a font twice the size of both. The silver alphabets spell out 'Superstar Rajnikanth', the hero's name. I was at a theatre sparsely populated, low-key, given a press show. I could hear crowds going berserk at that moment. Audiences in Tamil Nadu, I am told, would have lit up fire crackers indoors by now

In a climatic sequence in "Robot", thousands of Rajnikants link themselves together to form a huge drill, then a jumbo ball raining bullets, a massive python, and finally a towering giant who bursts from the underground. It's moments like these when you lean back in your seat and salute director Shankar's remarkable vision. Unlike so many bloated sci-fi adventures we've seen, particularly in Bollywood, "Robot" has a clear plot to hook the viewer in place

Robot, a film that is being touted as the most expensive Asian film of our times, has been directed by S Shankar. Well expensive or not, the film is certainly path breaking in some ways in that it truly fits into the sci-fi genre and provides for a kind of entertainment we have not seen in Indian cinema before. You can expect some interesting action, a cohesive plot and a very young looking Rajnikant from this film. Robot or Enthiran, revolves around a scientist

ROBOT may have started slow but it will pick up by positive word of mouth.