Rocket Boys review: SonyLIV brings yet another interesting subject in the form of a web-series. It's as if the team there knows just how to make quality content... a secret formula others don't know about. Directed by Abhay Pannu and created by Siddharth Roy Kapur, Monisha Advani, Madhu Bhojwani, and Nikkhil Advani, this series draws you immediately to the plot but then wobbles quite a bit. Rocket Boys Trailer: SonyLIV Brings You the Incredible Journey of Dr Homi J Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabhai (Watch Video).

Homi Bhabha (Jim Sarbh) and Vikram Sarabhai (Ishwak Singh) both meet at a time when the World War II is going on. The Cambridge alumnis bond over their eccentric ideas for science and their country. Although both have different approach towards their beliefs, they become thick friends. But they do have a fallout on making India's first atom bomb which threatens not only their dreams for a strong nation but also their friendship. In between all that, they make discoveries and launch several nation-building projects.

It's a landkmark show in the way that a lot of landkmark decisions were taken during this time as an independent nation. You feel a sense of pride and awe to realise that these two men have strengthened India in more ways than one. This series has one of the most tastefully done title credits. It gives you a glimpse of the key twists in the series.

The friendship between Bhabha and Sarabhai is so beautifully written in the first couple of episodes that you want to see more of this camaraderie. In fact, you are so invested in their bond that when their individual romances occur, they seem more like a distraction. Many may feel that these two men were too far removed from India's struggle for Independence but the argument here will be they were getting ready to build the free nation. So you can discount the least emphasis on the freedom apart from a few Gandhi mention here and there.
Unfortunately, mid-season the series starts showing cracks. It's as if the writers got lazy after the initial excitement. The highlight of the series - the friendship becomes more of a footnote while the purpose of the show gets derailed. It starts investing a lot on Homi's several family issues and his fight to get grants or Sarabhai's failure to innovate his father's mill and help the workers. In fact, when the two have a massive fallout, you don't feel the hurt as much as you felt the togetherness. That's a lost opportunity we feel.
Watch the trailer of Rocket Boys here:

Also, a few things come across as rather strange. Despite the endless timeline changes, all the characters look the same throughout. Bhabha just gets a slight paunch and we are not counting Indira Gandhi's grey streaks. They just don't age! Since we watched previews, a certain monologue in Tamil was devoid of subtitles. We hope when the episode streams on SonyLIV, due diligence is paid to it. That's an important character introduction and shouldn't be seen so neglectfully.
What also strikes you as funny here are the accents. They begin but don't remian. Be it Rajit Kapoor as Jawaharlal Nehru or Arjun Radhakrishnan as APJ Abdul Kalam or Regina Cassandra as Mrinalini Sarabhai, it's inconsistent. It's as if they forgot to keep up the pretense of playing another person. But then again, that doesn't affect the story at all and that's where perhaps the actors and the writers win! The entry of either Bhabha or Sarabhai after a short pep-talk is quite dramatised. While that doesn't hamper the story, they do make you laugh as these men don't need grand entries because their contributions to science and society are enough.
Performances are genuine and accurate without any over-the-top melodrama. Issak Singh as Sarabhai is quite charming and believable while Regina as Mrinalini Sarabhai is a great eye-pleaser. She has an aura around her, an air of self-confidence and fearless stance. Saba Azad as Parvana Irani is cute and fun while Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Raza is the perfect guy with grey shades. But the star is of course Jim Sarbh. In the first episode, he teaches a class about cosmic rays. We so wish we had a Physics teacher like that who could make the subject sound so exciting. Sarbh seemed to have transformed himself into Bhabha. He is just brilliant! Rocket Boys Star Jim Sarbh Says Homi Bhabha Provided Self-Reliance When Technology Was Minuscule.

Yay!

-landmark-driven story
-Jim Sarbh
-Bhabha-Sarabhai friendship

Nay!

-Flippant accents
-Mid-season lull
-non aging characters

Final Thoughts:

Rocket Boys is just the biopic everyone needs to watch this weekend on SonyLIV if you ever wondered why India is seen as the fast-growing powerhouse in the area of science and space research. Our foundations were quite strong!
Rating:3.0

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 04, 2022 10:51 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).