Enthiran

Shankar has been working on getting this film made for the past decade, and he clearly is so thrilled to get Robot into theaters that his enthusiasm is infectious. Filmgoers with a taste for the absurd will be richly rewarded.

Endhiran -- The Robot provides maximum bang for its reported $34 million budget with a sensationally overstated and overwhelming mash-up of American-style, f/x-driven sci-fi spectacle and exuberant Bollywood-style songs, dance and romance.

A melodramatic kitschy Indian musical about a robot built for national defense but who discovers his human side.

Leave aside jokes running on the Internet. This film, just a few feet too long, is fine entertainment by itself.

Not quite happy with the message that the movie was trying to drive, the script entrusts Rajnikanth with a courtroom appearance, where he delivers a sermon on how science can be used and misused.

Imagine the worst bits of Alex Proyas' I, Robot and Robert Greenwald's Xanadu, cobbled together with a dash of Shaw's Pygmalion, and you get some grim picture as to what S. Shankar's grating extravaganza Robot has to offer.

Far too creative and imaginative to be passed over by discriminatory viewers turned off by the massive musical numbers.

Imagine the worst bits of Alex Proyas' I, Robot (2004) and Robert Greenwald's Xanadu (1980), cobbled together with a dash of Shaw's Pygmalion, and you get some grim picture as to what S. Shankar's grating extravaganza Robot has to offer.

Good, bad, and weird in equal amounts, it's the best apocalyptic sci-fi-romcom-melodrama-dance-off date movie of the year.