dongalu paddaka aaru nelalaku moruguthunnatlu…

I know this is too late for any review on Robo. I saw Robo only last night (Oct 24), which for me is the second Telugu film to watch in a theater in US in nearly 12 years. I have the forum – what the heck, I will write it anyway.

Overall – the movie is average, that too because I was prepared to be very disappointed due to the hype. Emotions for an android (not the phone, but the character Data) has been a concept Star Trek – the Next Generation has delved on for as long as it existed. Commander Data (played by Brent Spiner) was one of my favorite characters on the hit TV show, Star Trek TNG. More on Data and comparison to Chitti in a later post.

The Android Commander Data on the Starship Enterprise

For now, here is what I think of the movie, Robo.

• The best in the movie: the comedy scenes, followed by Rehman’s music and background score.
• The exploding Borg ship-like cube in the titles made me wonder if Sankar is a fan of Star Trek TNG.

• Central to success for any movie which relies so much on technology is a gripping story that touches on human emotions and relationships. Sankar recognized this. However, I think he is only partially successful in doing so. For instance, the girl saved by Chitti feels more ashamed to be nude than thankful to be alive? Huh! To me, it is not convincing enough.
• The worst: extended (too dragging) ‘formations’ by the Robo-clones in the climax. The director could have saved some production cost by cutting the length of these animated-graphics scenes in half. IMO, cutting so wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the movie.
• In several songs, costumes looked very silly. Almost as silly as the costumes worn by NTR and other characters in his movies when he was in peak form at the end of his acting career.
• Aishwarya Roy is still looking cute, but age is showing.

There are a couple of Star Trek TNG episodes which are entirely based on emotions to the android commander Data. I will post them soon – you can then tell me if Sankar stay tuned.