Starring Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja, and Boman Irani. In Hindi with English subtitles. Rated PG.

Visual-effects wizards are beginning to put their mark on Bollywood’s growing reliance on special effects. Now if only the industry’s storytellers can catch up to them, then we’ll have something truly magical.

Love Story 2050, India’s first truly science-fiction romance, is a case in point. The special-effects team dominates with some groundbreaking work while the filmmakers flounder with a badly executed plot.

Yet despite its numerous flaws, there is a novelty factor that can’t be ignored.

Harman Baweja—who is being launched with this star-making vehicle by veteran director-writer dad Harry—and Priyanka Chopra play Karan and Sana, respectively, two Indo-Australians living in Sydney. Motherless Karan yearns for love and family, which his corporate-head dad can’t provide. So Karan seeks out extreme sports and other dangers to keep life interesting—until he falls head over heels for the sweet and beautiful Sana.

Normally, this kind of love story—which is similar to another star-son/director-dad vehicle, Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai (Say This Is Love)—would have a reincarnation theme. But you don’t need reincarnation when there’s a time-travelling machine that can reunite our heartbroken hero with his true love 42 years into the future. The date 2050 was selected by Sana when the two were fiddling with the yet nonworking machine invented by his kooky ex–NASA scientist uncle.

Essentially, this is two films in one. The first part is a sweet and gooey love fest set in 2008 that is bearable only because of the chemistry between Baweja and Chopra. The second half, though much more uneven, brings out the wow factor with some eye-popping special effects that turn Bombay into a slick, futuristic metropolis.

For the song-and-dance crowd, there are a few great numbers between the two leads. My favourite is “Loverboy”, which features our heroine in her new avatar as 2050’s biggest pop-star, Geisha. Performed on a high-tech stage perched between the glittering skyscrapers with huge crowds cheering Geisha from the streets below, it’s an absolute pleasure for the senses.