As expected, I was holding my head in my hands by the end of the first scene - a third-rate animated SFX collage involving damsel-in-distress Priyanka Chopra (who is hanging in mid-air and tied to chains but feels no pain), Sunjay Dutt (whose black lower molars are more scary than his antics), and a super-hero who gets his blue-suited bottom kicked (making Priyanka wonder whether she should shift loyalties to the lecherous Dutt) before good triumphs over evil in a fight sequence that seems to have been put together in a seedy hole-in-the-wall sweatshop in downtown Chennai.

I watched the complete film - to make sure that I didn't miss a possible scene that would redeem the movie - I wasn't disappointed: there wasn't one. How can one make a movie without having a real story to tell? Director and storywriter of Ra.One, Anubhav Sinha, to jog your memory - a story is a narrative involving twists and turns that keeps one away from eating nachos - forcing to shush anybody in the movie hall uttering a sigh lest you miss a word. One forgets, a good story is not a problem that an Indian film needs to address. Shahrukh had already recouped 70 per cent of the cost of the film by the time the movie released - rest was up to box office performance. Since Indians also like to watch films that have been termed hopeless, just to check out how pathetic the film is, recovering money from sales of tickets shouldn't be a problem. All in all, it means Shahrukh will again be back - with a sequel - and God only knows what brand of nonsense he will ask us to pay for the next time.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed my share of David Dhawan films and have subsidized the Hindi film industry by suffering through many potboilers. Therefore, due to the affection I have for our risk-taking Bollywood brethren - the director of Ra.One, producer Gauri Khan, and lead actor Shahrukh Khan wouldn't mind fielding a few burning questions.

1. Do you have any idea, when it comes to special effects and animation, what you are up against, globally? I am sure you do. Was this the best way you wanted to bring Bollywood upto the mark Hollywood has set - by showing us effects that the 80s Mac could have done better?

2. The video games' 'Good' G.One (Jeevan) had absolutely no allure, lacked new interesting powers, and was more robotic than a sofa. The movement of G.One and Ra.One on the screen was a bit staccato. The narrative was so stilted that it seemed like we are in a video game of cardboard characters. At least in a video game it's anybody's game, in Ra.One we know from scene one that Ra.One will be trounced, so where's the tension in the film? I have had so much more fun playing the two-dimensional PAC MAN - than sitting through the one-to-one between the red team and blue team in Ra.One.

3. A few observations for the SFX team. If Jeevan can fly, why did he try to copy Spiderman in the train scene? Heroes don't show-off, they get on with it. Why couldn't Jeeven just zip ahead in front of the train to try to stop it - and when he did, most of the work had already been done by Chatrapati Shivaji Terminal's facade.

4. The government of India will be really glad that Jeevan is against smoking. Jeevan doesn't know - Shahrukh smokes like there's no tomorrow and coffee is his elixir.

5. The way the protagonists of the video game come together and disintegrate, in little squares, has been open ripped off from the Terminator series of films.

6. Ra.One should not get anywhere near the aliens that Arnold Schwarzenegger fought in Terminator films. It does a bad job copying the ability to get under anybody's skin.

7. The idea of the 'heart' of Ra.One and Jeevan - some kind of power-generating bright coloured bulb - has been taken from Iron Man. The only difference - in Shahrukh's film it's on the right side of the chest - how imaginative.

8. Brother Shahrukh, get a grip - not on the video game's jockey stick - but yourself. Your grand premise and marketing pitch - that it's due to evil that good exists and that the evil never goes away despite our trying - well it's very true - how will it go away if we keep producing such devilishly soulless films?  

9. The bright spot of the film: Chammak Challo. Great rhythm, lovely singing, and Akon, dude, you are my chammak challo for learning Hindi way faster than Katrina Kaif and singing in it better than Bhappi da.