Tuesday, April 5, 2011

ROBOT (2010)

[Update 03/23/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

A supergenius scientist creates a robot, Chitti, that can walk and drive a car and breakdance and help Aishwarya Rai cheat on her medical exam and even talk to mosquitoes, but he doesn't have any human emotions. The regulatory board that oversees that kind of bullshit says that Chitti must be destroyed because he's too dangerous. One insane example of his lack of human understanding is when he saves a woman trapped in an apartment fire...wait for it, wait!...because she was naked. Yep, according to humans, it's better to died a agonizing slow death in an inferno than be saved without any clothes on. Stupid robot!!!!! Eventually Chitti does learn some human emotions like wanting to fuck the scientist's girlfriend, so he's destroyed and his remains dumped in the junkyard. Along comes an evil scientist and rebuilds Chitti to be a military grade Killbot and kill he does, by the fucking hundreds! He even has evil lightning bolt shaped sideburns.

The basic idea of ROBOT is fun, but this motherfucker's nearly 3 hours long!!! It's too goddamn much. Plus, the feel of the movie is all over the map: there's a suicide, multiple attempted rape scenes (including a massive gang rape), crossdressing, rapping (in English), a wedding, a karate class, baby tossing, baby delivery, a fashion show, wholesale mass murder, cooking, singing, dancing and much more. An episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force has a more linear story than ROBOT. I wanted to like this movie and for a few minutes I did, but by the end I was just fucking exhausted. I know that that rapid fire insanity plus musical numbers is standard operating procedure for some Indian films, but it didn't work as well in ROBOT.

Long story short: it's an entertaining flick that's hurt by the long running time. Also, I was very confused as to why Aishwarya's neighbors, who attempted to gang rape her, never got in trouble. I mean they literally kidnapped her and tried to rape her, but then later on you see them standing on their balcony pointing and laughing at her.  Also, at one point Chitti, who's made of metal, punched a guy down to the ground, crammed a pole down the guy's throat and then pole vaulted (!!!!!!!!), but the guy lived!

Worth a watch, just for the pure insanity of it all, but be sure to leave all of your logic at the door.

Part 2 - 2.0 (2018)