2018, Tamil, Amazon Prime, 6.3/10 IMDB, Directed by S. Shankar
A potpurri of shankar’s movies with Rajini occupying 90% of screen space, saved by 3D and Red Chip 2.0, accompanied by 3.0 version ‘Kutty’.
Now, have you questioned Hollywood super heros fighting stupid faces in an irked revenge saga? Haven’t we helped the movie to become a block buster on India? Have we ever mocked the Supermans or Batmans or Spidermans or any super powered men of the west for their power plays? If no, then let’s not throw tantrums in demeaning the local production for pooling all funds and talents in showcasing the movie 2.0. Let’s rather take pride for the movie to have happened in southern industry to set a benchmark that’s hard to beat.
But there is no violation in mocking the screen play and the storyline. The reincarnation revenge saga of an Ornithologist and his birds is sadly the one-line. Sounds weird and they call this a social message. But hey come on, we have had many Anacondas and Draculas and even a housefly doing that, then why not a humble house sparrow and a boy do the same when its the sparrow who brought life into the stillborn baby Akshay by performing CPR.
You get to see Vasigaran sans Sana. Amy does surprisingly a good job, thanks to the robo role that she is not expected to emote much. Poorly made 1st half with the ‘aura’ nonsense. we in South at the least are tamed enough for reincarnation revenges, that we don’t need a scientific dig for substantiation. It could have been handled with bit more care but ended up like an history channel’s extraterrestrial imprint on planet earth and even leaned more towards Nicholas Cage’s Ghost Rider. Guess shankar was way too busy tackling CGs and VFX that he let that part unattended to. Thank God, or else he would have spent couple of more grands on detailing ‘Aura’ in depth.
Interval block with Akshay’s display on the mobile screen as a demon face, makes you guess if Shankar still hangs over in the denial from Arnold Schwarzenegger for that role. He made Akshay’s look remind Arnold often into the entire second half. Akshay doesn’t have a role at all whatsoever because he is behind an array of masks. Even in the real life role he is unidentifiable in a senior citizen role. On top of that, when there is one scene to score in the foot-ball ground stunt sequence and shankar decides to make ‘Anniyan Replay’ with rajini popping on and off denying chances for Akshay to emote, let alone speak..
Now let’s talk about Rajinikanth. He is a sweet heart puppet in the hands of the director, producer and the CG technicians (some scenes are cartoon tinged). But hey, he lifts buses, runs like an athlete, fights, saves vasigaran, saves Tamil Nadu and after a while you even pity the old bald grandpa inside that body suit for being man-handled but eventually his fatigue does translates to the audience.
But when the red chipped version ‘2.0-reloaded’ is rebooted, the old saga gets a facelift and shankar has placed all his bet on this and targeted the audience with more punches and witty villaneous body language, a tad bit more than what we expected and luckily it did work. The macho ‘Clash of the Titans’ game on the foot-ball ground with rajini as a Transformers-style Iron Man, one is left in awe with the CG. It’s an ultimate never seen power play in Indian cinemas. The surprise ‘Kutty version 3.0’ with a hilarious squeaky voice is a treat for the toddlers in all our own selves.
Clever portrayal of song in the end along with the credits. Rasul’s 4D sounds does deafen you but the script needs it and the hard work on sound rerecording does pay off on screen. AR.Rahman’s background score is nothing innovative from endhiran’s..
The 3D moments were awesome and it sure is a treat for the little ones and adults after a long time since our first ‘my dear kutty sathan’ days in tamil.
Somewhere in the movie, I was reminded of our small ‘Salem women association’ group called ‘Swan’ in which we were discussing a year back how to wean ourselves from Mobiles to stand an example for our kids at home and even started practising by making Sundays a mobile-free day. The oath was short lived though. The ill effects of Mobiles are plenty, the addiction is undoubtedly making us maniacs, but the movie doesn’t substantiate the core plot as we are left confused who is good and who is bad. If the villan is trying to save birds, the hero tries to save humans but with the ultimate help of a fierce banned 2.0 version, a villian from the prequel, we audience are left confused so as to whose side we are on.
Vasigaran does address that in the end and the kutty 3.0 calling itself the grandkid version, does make it close to our tiny hearts.
A homemade superhero flick needs the support but not too much that it might make shankar over ambitious to proceed with 3.0 movie.