End of quizzes, and Diwali time, coupled with 3 new releases, and enthu junta on insti LAN means you end up catching all new releases on the release weekend itself. While the whole world is going about voicing its views about the releases, and a lot of verbal bashing up is going on, I thought I might as well jump on into the bandwagon! So, here goes my review of the three movies, if you’d want to call it that! Well, I do not have an enthu to list the entire story down, so it’s just a few comments about the three movies here.
7aum Arivu: First day, and technically, first show in the theatre I watched it. (Prarthana, so drive-in, evening show = first show! :P) The movie is about a Tamil Buddhist monk Bodhidharman, who is instrumental in the spread of Buddhism, the martial arts and also ancient medicinal techniques into ancient-day China. It deals with how modern day China tries to launch a bio-war on India, and how a genetically similar descendant of Bodhidharma is made to help rescue India by using atavistic techniques!
On the acting front, Suriya, Shruthi Haasan and Johnny Tri Nyugen, all come out trumps. Suriya does an easy, regular job as Aravind, the circus guy. But, as Bodhidharma, he really shows why he is such a versatile actor. For almost the entire period running upto 20 minutes, barring one scene, there are no dialogues, and his body language convey everything that needs to be put forward to the audience. The smiles, or the fierce stares, the Kalari practicing scene, and not to forget, the fight sequence where he singlehandedly chases the invaders away, just make you want to cheer for him! Shruthi Haasan shows where her genes come from! She does a good job, quite comfortably! Well, there were quite a few people who were cribbing about her putting up a deadpan expression and not being able to emote! I believe she was just trying to be natural. If acting in your context means, getting raped, and then wailing out loudly saying “Enna kedithitaan, machan enna konnudu da” and winning national awards for it (no offense meant to Priyamani), then I don’t want to take the argument further. The Johnny guy doesn’t need to really do anything, his eyes do the job! Now, onto the technical aspects of the film. A.R.Murugadoss directs fine, but man, he has forgotten the screenplay when he has been filming this on celluloid. In his previous outing Ghajini, the screenplay was out of the world until the end of the second flashback, and he lost track in the last half an hour which he made monotonous and hard to sit through. But in this case, he seems to have lost steam after the first 20 minutes. Maybe the Bodhidharma sequence could have been a flashback, and that could have somehow sustained audience interest in the first half. Many new directors need to learn lessons in screenplay, from someone who was not at all good with direction, but one could sit through his movies for sheer screenplay power, K.Bhagyaraj! The Kamal-Bharathiraja film Oru Kaidhiyin Diary had to be made in Hindi, with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead, and he decided to rope Bhagyaraj as director for screenplay power. Bhagyaraj made a single change to the script, including a new scene in the Hindi version, where the dad and son Bachchans meet, and the movie went several notches higher. Of late, the only such screenplay power I’ve noticed from, is Kamal Haasan, in films like Hey Ram, Virumaandi, or Dasavatharam, where screenplay was a big factor in making the movie a winner. In 7aum Arivu, many songs were unnecessary. The two best songs, Mun Andhi (special mention to Haasan jr. :P) and Yellae Lama, were ill-placed. Romance lacked intensity, and at some point the movie just got sleepy. If not for so much IIT Madras footage, maybe I’d not have liked the movie half as much as I did. Good, not worth the hype though!
Ra.One: Second day, insti LAN. Three movies released on Diwali day, and all three had heroes I like, one who was steadily climbing down the ranks, and one climbing up. SRK for one, has been a long time favourite, since the days of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Duplicate. I did expect a lot from Ra.One, and my respect for him increased exponentially after all his pro-Thalaivar dialogues before the release of the film. Also, I loved My Name is Khan, in spite of all the negative reviews around me, and was putting the debacle of Billu behind me! But, Ra.One, true to the name of the character in the film, comes along crushing all expectations. SRK, as Shekhar Subramaniam kills the shit out of you. You just can’t watch his craziness, it’s terribly majorly because he ends up portraying a TamBrahm. The only good thing about his character is he roots for the good, in spite of creating a game dominated by the bad for his totally stupid, I-would-have-slapped-him-if-he-were-my-kid type son. The guy Armaan, who plays his son, the lesser said about him, the better. Kareena Kapoor looks a billion bucks, but her role in the movie ends there. Oh ya, she is there to explain the significance of Karva Chauth to the good guy in the game, G.One. That reminds me, G.One is SRK in another forgettable performance. When did SRK get trained by Sivaji Ganesan (well, he’s a legend, but in some of later movies he really did cross the line) to overact? Also how can a robot overact? Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra throw in useless guest appearances. I’d like to say the same thing about Thalaivar. It’s quite a shame that he had to be part of this piece of epic-shit! Well, the one and a half minutes he is on screen oozes with style, but we could probably have done without it considering the output, after the hype it was given. Finally, Arjun Rampal does a guest appearance as villain. One definitely feels the hero is 0.01% as cool as the villain, but given the climax fight sequence, 0.01% as strong? Really?? Also, if the hero or villain could die only in the third level, why did we have the first two levels? Some kind of qualifiers before the actual chequered flag? #epic-fail-idea. Also keeping in tow with the previous release where delegates in China talk in English (come on dude, Chinese (Mandarin) is the world’s largest spoken language), here the delegates in an international gaming conference talk in Hindi. Chammak Challo is a face-saver, for the song is totally disconnected in some sense from the movie, and you can enjoy it like you watch a music video. The entire movie is a farce. Below the belt jokes rule in this child flick. All this movie has done to SRK is made him the face of a million other jokes, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if all the TR-Vijaykant-Vijay jokes are modified to suit SRK and sent around soon!
Velayudham: For someone who loved Ghilli and Pokkiri, and rooted for Vijay after them, the last few years were hell. It’s an insult to the Tamil industry to call Sura a film. Vettaikaaran, and Villu, though they scored on romance and style respectively, were nonsensical otherwise. Kaavalan was funny, but there was no real story until the last fifteen minutes. But, Velayutham comes to the rescue. For starters, thankfully it wasn’t hyped, and it had a terrible trailer. The movie is no different from other Vijay movies in the fact that it is a complete commercial entertainer, but the screenplay is taut for once. The film is funny, Santhanam tickles the bone often enough to keep you in splits throughout the film. Vijay is good. He as always can act, and can dance too, and thankfully doesn’t overdo either, and that makes the film very good to watch. Genelia does a pretty decent job with the acting. Hansika has all the potential to become the next Namitha of Tamil Cinema. She is fat, she is white, she can’t act to save her life, and her scenes are loaded with squirm-in-seat moments. Keeping in line with the previous two films, here there are Pakistani terrorists talking in Tamil. All that reminds me of is “Sher Khan, Sher ke bachche”, in the opening sequence of the epic terrorist catching film of Vijaykant, Narasimma. For a change, in a Vijay movie, you don’t feel stuff going haywire, and you don’t feel like thinking, “What’s this guy doing!”. Every action, and its corresponding reaction are natural, like the scene where Vijay talks about wanting to just be a loving brother to his sister, and not a super-hero to save the nation. The climax also makes a lot of sense, considering the theme of the film. If there is something that could have been toned down, they are Vijay’s political innuendos. The number of times he makes a reference to “Amma”, directly or indirectly, are ......, wait I lost count after the first three times. Well, it looks like things are brightening up again for Vijay. Post a decent outing in Kaavalan, and a blockbuster in Velayudham, I don’t see him going down anytime soon with Nanban with Shankar, A.R.Murugadoss’ next and Yohan Adhyayam Onru with Gautham Menon in the pipeline. As long as he does decent films, he definitely will be watchable.
7aum Arivu: First day, and technically, first show in the theatre I watched it. (Prarthana, so drive-in, evening show = first show! :P) The movie is about a Tamil Buddhist monk Bodhidharman, who is instrumental in the spread of Buddhism, the martial arts and also ancient medicinal techniques into ancient-day China. It deals with how modern day China tries to launch a bio-war on India, and how a genetically similar descendant of Bodhidharma is made to help rescue India by using atavistic techniques!
On the acting front, Suriya, Shruthi Haasan and Johnny Tri Nyugen, all come out trumps. Suriya does an easy, regular job as Aravind, the circus guy. But, as Bodhidharma, he really shows why he is such a versatile actor. For almost the entire period running upto 20 minutes, barring one scene, there are no dialogues, and his body language convey everything that needs to be put forward to the audience. The smiles, or the fierce stares, the Kalari practicing scene, and not to forget, the fight sequence where he singlehandedly chases the invaders away, just make you want to cheer for him! Shruthi Haasan shows where her genes come from! She does a good job, quite comfortably! Well, there were quite a few people who were cribbing about her putting up a deadpan expression and not being able to emote! I believe she was just trying to be natural. If acting in your context means, getting raped, and then wailing out loudly saying “Enna kedithitaan, machan enna konnudu da” and winning national awards for it (no offense meant to Priyamani), then I don’t want to take the argument further. The Johnny guy doesn’t need to really do anything, his eyes do the job! Now, onto the technical aspects of the film. A.R.Murugadoss directs fine, but man, he has forgotten the screenplay when he has been filming this on celluloid. In his previous outing Ghajini, the screenplay was out of the world until the end of the second flashback, and he lost track in the last half an hour which he made monotonous and hard to sit through. But in this case, he seems to have lost steam after the first 20 minutes. Maybe the Bodhidharma sequence could have been a flashback, and that could have somehow sustained audience interest in the first half. Many new directors need to learn lessons in screenplay, from someone who was not at all good with direction, but one could sit through his movies for sheer screenplay power, K.Bhagyaraj! The Kamal-Bharathiraja film Oru Kaidhiyin Diary had to be made in Hindi, with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead, and he decided to rope Bhagyaraj as director for screenplay power. Bhagyaraj made a single change to the script, including a new scene in the Hindi version, where the dad and son Bachchans meet, and the movie went several notches higher. Of late, the only such screenplay power I’ve noticed from, is Kamal Haasan, in films like Hey Ram, Virumaandi, or Dasavatharam, where screenplay was a big factor in making the movie a winner. In 7aum Arivu, many songs were unnecessary. The two best songs, Mun Andhi (special mention to Haasan jr. :P) and Yellae Lama, were ill-placed. Romance lacked intensity, and at some point the movie just got sleepy. If not for so much IIT Madras footage, maybe I’d not have liked the movie half as much as I did. Good, not worth the hype though!
Ra.One: Second day, insti LAN. Three movies released on Diwali day, and all three had heroes I like, one who was steadily climbing down the ranks, and one climbing up. SRK for one, has been a long time favourite, since the days of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Duplicate. I did expect a lot from Ra.One, and my respect for him increased exponentially after all his pro-Thalaivar dialogues before the release of the film. Also, I loved My Name is Khan, in spite of all the negative reviews around me, and was putting the debacle of Billu behind me! But, Ra.One, true to the name of the character in the film, comes along crushing all expectations. SRK, as Shekhar Subramaniam kills the shit out of you. You just can’t watch his craziness, it’s terribly majorly because he ends up portraying a TamBrahm. The only good thing about his character is he roots for the good, in spite of creating a game dominated by the bad for his totally stupid, I-would-have-slapped-him-if-he-were-my-kid type son. The guy Armaan, who plays his son, the lesser said about him, the better. Kareena Kapoor looks a billion bucks, but her role in the movie ends there. Oh ya, she is there to explain the significance of Karva Chauth to the good guy in the game, G.One. That reminds me, G.One is SRK in another forgettable performance. When did SRK get trained by Sivaji Ganesan (well, he’s a legend, but in some of later movies he really did cross the line) to overact? Also how can a robot overact? Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra throw in useless guest appearances. I’d like to say the same thing about Thalaivar. It’s quite a shame that he had to be part of this piece of epic-shit! Well, the one and a half minutes he is on screen oozes with style, but we could probably have done without it considering the output, after the hype it was given. Finally, Arjun Rampal does a guest appearance as villain. One definitely feels the hero is 0.01% as cool as the villain, but given the climax fight sequence, 0.01% as strong? Really?? Also, if the hero or villain could die only in the third level, why did we have the first two levels? Some kind of qualifiers before the actual chequered flag? #epic-fail-idea. Also keeping in tow with the previous release where delegates in China talk in English (come on dude, Chinese (Mandarin) is the world’s largest spoken language), here the delegates in an international gaming conference talk in Hindi. Chammak Challo is a face-saver, for the song is totally disconnected in some sense from the movie, and you can enjoy it like you watch a music video. The entire movie is a farce. Below the belt jokes rule in this child flick. All this movie has done to SRK is made him the face of a million other jokes, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if all the TR-Vijaykant-Vijay jokes are modified to suit SRK and sent around soon!
Velayudham: For someone who loved Ghilli and Pokkiri, and rooted for Vijay after them, the last few years were hell. It’s an insult to the Tamil industry to call Sura a film. Vettaikaaran, and Villu, though they scored on romance and style respectively, were nonsensical otherwise. Kaavalan was funny, but there was no real story until the last fifteen minutes. But, Velayutham comes to the rescue. For starters, thankfully it wasn’t hyped, and it had a terrible trailer. The movie is no different from other Vijay movies in the fact that it is a complete commercial entertainer, but the screenplay is taut for once. The film is funny, Santhanam tickles the bone often enough to keep you in splits throughout the film. Vijay is good. He as always can act, and can dance too, and thankfully doesn’t overdo either, and that makes the film very good to watch. Genelia does a pretty decent job with the acting. Hansika has all the potential to become the next Namitha of Tamil Cinema. She is fat, she is white, she can’t act to save her life, and her scenes are loaded with squirm-in-seat moments. Keeping in line with the previous two films, here there are Pakistani terrorists talking in Tamil. All that reminds me of is “Sher Khan, Sher ke bachche”, in the opening sequence of the epic terrorist catching film of Vijaykant, Narasimma. For a change, in a Vijay movie, you don’t feel stuff going haywire, and you don’t feel like thinking, “What’s this guy doing!”. Every action, and its corresponding reaction are natural, like the scene where Vijay talks about wanting to just be a loving brother to his sister, and not a super-hero to save the nation. The climax also makes a lot of sense, considering the theme of the film. If there is something that could have been toned down, they are Vijay’s political innuendos. The number of times he makes a reference to “Amma”, directly or indirectly, are ......, wait I lost count after the first three times. Well, it looks like things are brightening up again for Vijay. Post a decent outing in Kaavalan, and a blockbuster in Velayudham, I don’t see him going down anytime soon with Nanban with Shankar, A.R.Murugadoss’ next and Yohan Adhyayam Onru with Gautham Menon in the pipeline. As long as he does decent films, he definitely will be watchable.
3 comments:
"She is fat, she is white, she can’t act to save her life, and her scenes are loaded with squirm-in-seat moments" <-- You have dissed Namitha in one epic line. All Namitha Development Sangam people are going to be very angry with you :P
BTW, what do you mean by Bhagyaraj has the best screenplay? Is it due to the fact that some of his movies are extremely linear and develop slowly?
"Hansika has all the potential to become the next Namitha of Tamil Cinema. She is fat, she is white, she can’t act to save her life, and her scenes are loaded with squirm-in-seat moments."
Made me literally roll on my bed. LOL. You should write more reviews. You could be the Next Rajeev "Sarcastic" Masand.
@Sathish: Lol, adhellam paathukalam.. :P Okay, by screenplay, I meant, in his films you always had something to look forward to. Story crappy or not, you always had to watch a substantial part of the film to understand it in full, and it was always filled with what will happen next moments. As for non-linear narratives, stuff like Andha ezhu naatkal, and that one film where he is separated from his wife Saritha and his son, are non-linear narratives, and he would have done complete justice to the non-linearity of the script! I feel..
@Shre: Don't insult me by comparing me to the Rajeev 'Sarcastic' guy.. :P :P
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