If you felt in two different ways after seeing the first half and second half, then probably you are one of those who felt there was something missing. Something that made you ‘not-so-satisfied’ with what it promised to be after the first half. If so, yes, it was not worth its budget or hype. Now that the euphoria is calmed down, can we get to the reality for a minute! For example, on the first Friday (Oct 1^st) night show, in a metro city in USA, the Hindi version ran with half the theatre empty.   Of course, the other versions might have run to full capacity, though priced at $30/Tamil, $20/Telugu. Alas, superior hollywood flicks run for regular price ($8.5!) next door. Still, we‘re bothered about 1^st week collections or so, and hence we raise the bar of prices to match our bids and the movie budget. That has been the trend, especially for so-called telugu/tamil big-budget/star movies. Can’t we take any corrective steps collectively in this regard! Isn’t the price-mismatch a reason for people tempting towards free-online pirated versions! Some say, it is a vicious circle or a catch 22, dot. Back to Robo, was it worth its price then?

As Shankar mentioned in one of the pre-release promos - they worked very hard, equivalent to the amount of 10 movies work and was expecting the result too, equivalent to ten movies. Could he achieve that!   Was the task of the ‘Robo’ creator completed! Doesn’t seem to be, dot. Undoubtedly, the movie was a good time-pass and entertaining, as Rajni , the Robo does everything that we could wish him to do. It’s all about the great team work they had put up for about three years. But for ‘Rajni-Shankar-Aish’ combo craze, this movie would never have been what it is today. Still, couldn’t it have been better!  

Where did it miss then, if at all somebody thinks so! You have the best possible star cast and technicians. You have the sun pictures baron backing the budget to the hilt. You have a 10 year-old dream project in hand. You have a visionary and grandeur that were proven to be successful commercially.   You have come out of the recurrent theme of corruption and one-man-army cleansing the system through extreme and entertaining moves.   You have the best taste for paisa-vasool entertainment through your screen-play treatment and visual presentation of 24 movie crafts. You know how to make the best use of technology in your movies all along. You have the visual effects redefined to the best possible extent in Indian movies. Still, our ‘Robo’ misses something. Is it the soul, the feel or the entertainment itself!

The movie opens with welcoming the’ Robo’ character into human world and ends with keeping it in museum though, since ‘Robo’ started thinking and creating problems to human world. Between the Robo‘s helpful and harmful acts, it was the first one that impressed the audience most. However, the moment Robo started thinking, the director seems to have stopped thinking and applied fourth gear on tech without soul though.  

Characterization has been undoubtedly one of Shankar’s fortes.   But here in Robo, the main focus seemed to be on just the ‘Robo’ character - though it has 5 other prominent ones - the scientist, his lover, his envious professor, assistant scientists et al.   His protagonist lacked an author-backed characterization.   He neither looked at ease to romance with his lover, nor looked convinced in his attempt to dismantle his ‘Robo’ - when it failed to fulfill his mission of helping army and society. When his 10 years of hard work failed to serve the purpose, he looked helpless.   Probably, that was the way Director wanted him to be, never mind.   Somehow, the creator -creation emotional bonding was not portrayed convincingly. Would you empathize with the protagonist, when u can’t connect with what he does! The Scientist gets his best dialogue only at the end - when he mentions that ‘Robo’ too emulated wrong-doings picking from the very human world that he was put into.  In short, the hero has two aims, one is to create the most sophisticated ‘Robo’ and give it to army. And the other one is romance and marry his lover when he is not busy with his research. The first one was handled well, until it got distracted with machine-made love. The second one, romance lacked the feel of it, either with boy-friend or with toy-friend. Never mind, again.