HARMAN, another star is born. Review on Love Story 2050

July 4, 2008 was in news since a past couples of weeks as it was the day, when two newcomers were about to clash with their debut movies. Harman Baweja in "Love Story 2050" and Imran Khan in "Jaane Tu Yaa Jaane Naa".  WhereJaane Tu Yaa Jaane Naa is riding on its freshness factor,Love Story 2050 boasts of a lavish backdrop of a futuristic world with a quintessential love story in centerstage, thus clearly showing  all signs of a wholesome entertainer. When I came to know that Adlabs has decided to screen a paid preview of the movie on thursday night, I just couldn't miss the chance.

The movie is about Karan (Harman Baweja) who has everything in his life sans one, "love"(what else!!). One fine day he comes across Sana(Priyanka Chopra) and he instantly falls in love with her. After a few games of outsmarting each other, they finally succumb to the cupid. Just when everything seems to be perfect, Sana has an accident and dies in her lover's arms, but then as they say "When love is eternal, even God breaks the rules". So here we haveUncle Yaa alias Yatinder Khanna (Boman Irani) playing God and bending the rules (of physics, of astrology and what not!) by creating a time machine which helps them to go in future and bring back Sana. Now if you are wondering, why not go back in time and bring back Sana, then you must know that even though it's 2008 and the story is about 2050, but if a person dies without his or her wishes fulfilled, he reincarnates with the same face (according to our self-proclaimed ex-NASA scientist Uncle Yaa), so Sana reincarnates in future and yes, you will have your "Om Shanti Om" moments too(flashbacks mirroring the scenes from previous life!!).  The rest of the story is how Karan manages to make the Supermodel  of 2050, Ziesha(Priyanka Chopra again) believe in an oblivious concept of "reincarnation" (and of course their timeless love)  and brings her back  along with destroying the plans of an evil scientistDr. Hoshi to capture time machine.

On the visual front, the movie is an eye candy from the word "go". The camerawork in first half captures the serenic locales of Sydney like never before, but it's the CGI in the second half that is the most amazing part of the movie. After the intermission there isn't one single scene where you eyes will be bereft of some extravaganza. The scenes of Ziesha's live concert in the middle of the sky, the holographic representation of a housemaid serving you, the speedometer dial of a bike containing 2000-3000-4000  instead of normal 120-140-160, writing diary by waving your pen in air or an add of CEAT tyres in 2050 *were indeed refreshing and amusing. The scenes of a *robot giving pan to the customers at a pan shop *and a *snakecharmer entertaining a robotic snake really tickles your funny bones. Though there might be a chance you may find them ridiculous, but you gotta give credit to the directors for some novelty. The two robots in the movie named Poo and QT were particularly aimed at kids, especially Poo, a tiny teddy robot playing the darling of priyanka was too cute.  Also* don't miss the two robots talking in bhojpuri at one instant, hilarious indeed!

Ever since the first promo of the movie went on air, speculations started about the movie's resemblence to hollywood blockbuster such as "Back to the Future" and "Time Machine". In fact the movie reminds you of several hollywood movies at places. For example Uncle Yaa has an uncanny resemblence with "Doc" of "Back to the Future", the heroine dying in the arms of hero, and thus his quest to go back in time reminds us of "Time Machine. A faceless masked villain is obviously a  homage to  "Star Wars" while the fighting scenes will bring back the memories of"Ultraviolet" where all the hero does is breaking the metalllic covers of future soldiers with *his brawny punjabi blows, also the fighting scenes with sword like torches, I don't think I need you to tell the movie's name.

Much has been talked about Harman's similarility to Hritik, after watching the movie you will feel as if he was made to sit and watch every film of Hritik and then was instructed to ape him completely, I mean completely, whether it's the body language or the facial expressions, never mind the dance steps and looks, the stylists and choreographers were at his disposal for this arduous task, but then it's not easy to dance like Hritik and copying isn't really that bad if you add a little bit of your own panache too!  That's what I concluded after watching this movie.Harman definitely has the screen presence of a star, he can act, he dances like a dream and most of all he arrives as a confident actor in a movie which was made to showcase all,  what a bollywood hero does. He carries himself more like a hero rather than an actor and that's really nice because we already have too many stars trying to be an actor, finally here is a star, who just  does what stars do, to entertain people. Harman definitely is one guy to watch for and he doesn't need any luck for that. As his character in the movie always say, "I don't need luck, I have love(Priyanka Chopra).

Priyanks Chopra was excellent in both the roles, first as a coy, timid and allure college girl and then as a vivacious, cavalier and over the top supermodel in the second half. It's been long time since she appeared on silver screen and this definitely adds to the charm. Boman Irani was perfect choice for the *eccentric, crazy and half-hallucinated *scientist and he carries it well. There aren't any other actors whom I can write about, though Archana Puran Singh's character of a jolly punjabi mother does make you smile at times.

The music by Anu Malik hasn't really ruled the charts, but the songs come on their own, when appear onscreen, thanks to awesome camerawork and terrific choreography by Ahmed Khanand Remo. Though the songs "kaho Na kaho" and "Such Such Kehna" are being more popular, obviously because of excellent choreography, it's "Meelon ka Jaise hai Faasla", that really stands out as a soothing experience to the ears as well as the eyes.

Among all this sci-fi stuff and glossy glitz the movie is a love story at its core and the background score by Monty Sharma does full justice to that, especially the theme track, which haunts you throughout the movie. It might be possible that a section of moviegoers may not like the movie because of the movie's wannabe hollywoodish attempt, but then you gotta admit that however hard we try, we can only aspire to reach their standards because though America is going through a sub prime crisis, it's still 43 rupees to a dollar. So taking into the considerations, Harry Baweja has done exceptionaly well for the viewers as well as for his son, Harman. I will recommend this movie to everyone, *watch it as a love story, as a reincarnation story, as a sci-fi flick or as an arrival of another superstar in the making, HARMAN BAWEJA.