Anubhav Sinha’s latest tale, 'RA.One,' is definitely going to be one of the strongest films of the year for its outstanding visual beauty that makes it the slickest Indian superhero film to be ever made.

The defining virtue of this 3D marvel is that the film has a nice stuffing of action, explosion, fast-paced storytelling and brains.

Produced with a big budget price tag, this stylistically made film has been skilfully directed with overblown, dazzling special effects.

However, the film’s script doesn't come across as fresh as some of the plot devices try to go the Hollywood superhero films route like 'Iron Man' and 'Superman.'

The movie also contains a mishmash of crude vulgar jokes and clobbering boorish humour that shatters the overall affect of the movie and doesn’t perfectly match the mood of the family audience.

Script-wise, the screenplay doesn’t dissipate a strong value and the copious exposition isn’t well developed.

Nevertheless, the film’s modest charm Shahrukh makes it creditable and interesting despite the flaws. 'RA.One,' which is set in the future, succeeds on the strength of the character he plays.

There are no moments that you are likely to remember in 'RA.One' other than the computer aided visual effects.

Performance-Wise
Shahrukh’s victory hinged on his performance of G.One rather than on the south Indian Shekhar Subramanium, and he delivered.

Kareena Kapoor doesn’t spring any surprises with her performance as Shekhar’s wife, except for mouthing all the abuses. Armaan Verma gives enough depth to his character.

Arjun Rampal as RA.One looks expressionless throughout the movie.

The special appearance by Rajinikanth did add value to the film, unlike that of actors Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra.

The music score by the duo Vishal-Shekhar is not the saving grace, except for the one song 'Chammak Challo.'

V Manikanandan and Nicola Pecorini have handled the camera well and the up to date editing by Sanjay Sharma works nimbly.

Story-line
The film revolves around the techie wiz Shekhar Subramanium (Shahrukh) living in London and his son Prateek (Armaan Verma) who doesn’t consider his dad a hero.

Meanwhile Shekhar, who is working in a gaming company, is trying to impress his son, who believes that a villain is more powerful than boring heroes.

So the techie goes ahead and creates an invincibly powerful video game super villain character RA.One (Arjun Rampal) with the help of his team.

But Prateek, who plays the game under the name of Lucifer, beats RA.One, who then comes to life in search of Lucifer.

Taking on the identity of Shekhar’s colleague (Tom Wu), the angry RA.One kills Shekhar after the latter tells him that he is Lucifer.

Interestingly, with help of another of his dad’s colleagues Jenny, Prateek gets to release the good superhero (G.One) from the game. Meanwhile Shekhar’s wife (Kareena) and Prateek go back to India, where they get saved by G.One. Here begins the deadly game between RA.One and G.One.

Bottom-line
The teasers and trailers that touted the movie for the special visual extravaganza and the technical finesse have lived up to that curiosity.

Meanwhile, the train sequence in the film does hark back to Rajinikanth’s Robot. Director Anubhav Sinha hasn’t laboured to stimulate the script even after having co-written it with Kanika Dhillon, David Benullo and Mushtaq Sheikh.

The put-off in the film is the shallow romance and the various unnecessary emotional entanglements.

While 'RA.One' may have some problems, the flick is still watchable for Shahrukh and the special effects.