A small review on Sivaji - The Telugu version.
1. Songs are out of the world. Remaining movie is right there on par with a Gemini TV serial. Production values etc are great for the songs and are totally ignored for the talkie part. The result is a jarring disconnect between the two.
2. Missing the Shankar mark. You feel his midas touch only in the songs. Rest of the movie feels like a regular B grade Tamil movie.
3. Missing the Rajni mark. Rajni is in almost every scene of the movie and has clearly lost his comic timing. His energy levels are down and it is high time he stopped romancing eighteen year old girls. The style elements are all in place but after a while you don't actually whistle when you see the same elements repeated umpteen times.
4. The movie has no continuity. It feels like a series of incidents and stops just at that. There's no proper story or an engaging screenplay. I doubt if Shankar really had a bound script before starting the movie. It feels as if the only story he had in his mind had exactly three words: "Black Money, Rajni"
SPOILER ALERT. STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET.
5. Unbelievable holes in the script: Not expected in a Shankar movie. Since when has bringing the dead back from St Peters using CPR and shock treatment started working in 100% of the cases? And by the time Raghuvaran has laid his frail hands on Rajni - it is already thirty minutes (in cinematic time). By then even rigor mortis would have set in.
6. Take a hard disk which has password protected data. Take a sledge hammer now. Hit the hard disk as hard as possible to distort it completely. Now take the remains of the hard disk to some eminent organization like RAW. They will get the data on this disk in a day. CBI trying to use mimicry artists to get into the laptop is so 1970ish.
7. Rajni amassed 250 crores (10 dollars less. I stand corrected) in the USA by working as a software system architect? That means 50 million US dollars. Even with the assumption that he took about 20 years to get to this figure - he was saving at the rate of 2.5 million USD per year. Software System Architect? Where's that job buddy?
This is the worst Shankar movie I've seen and probably one of the worst Rajni movies till date. It reaffirms my faith that big directors when teaming up with big stars mess up things pretty badly. (STALIN - Murugadoss is another example though in restrospection - STALIN is handled in a much better way by Murugadoss.)
My verdict: Yawn. Wait for the DVD
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Munna
A very short Munna review.
Saw it yesterday on Prasads' large screen.
The movie has one song too many and about three hundred and fifty eight twists too many. I mean, it looks like the director and the scripwriter had packed off all twists planned for all the movies for the next two years into this movie. The result is a confused product and a dazed spectator. In the middle of this dramatic emphasis on "twists" a vital component of the movie - story - has been relegated to the background.
It is disappointing to see such a half baked project from Dil Raju. While an invincible hero escaping unhurt despite being in the line of fire is a pretty common and routine occurrence in Telugu cinema, it is high time the makers take a note of the Law of Diminishing Returns. At some point, the gloss and the technical finesse stop compensating these inane and idiotic - heroism elevation concepts. Too much of thread work in the movie and an ear shattering background score every time Prabhas appears on the screen may provide an enriching viewing experience for about fifteen minutes. But continue this onslaught for three hours and you can only feel pity for the hapless viewer.
Munna is a bad product from Dil Raju. While the first half is tolerable, it goes downhill right from the so called interval bang aided deftly by an overdose of tear jerking sequences and unrealistic reactions by the acting fraternity of the movie.
Music is passable and Prabhas has nothing much to do in the movie - except to look like a macho man and mouth ferocious lines albeit with a wooden face. He manages to do it convincingly. Iliana is back to her crowning khatarnak glory. She will not be remembered for either her performance or her appearance in this movie.
Like an oasis, Kota Srinivasa Rao excels in a neatly written small role. Prakash Raj goes through the motions mechanically but convincingly.
All in all, Munna is an avoidable flick if you are looking for a good entertainer. On the other hand if like mindless violence and superhero movies that defy logic in every step of life, you will love this movie.
The choice is yours.
Saw it yesterday on Prasads' large screen.
The movie has one song too many and about three hundred and fifty eight twists too many. I mean, it looks like the director and the scripwriter had packed off all twists planned for all the movies for the next two years into this movie. The result is a confused product and a dazed spectator. In the middle of this dramatic emphasis on "twists" a vital component of the movie - story - has been relegated to the background.
It is disappointing to see such a half baked project from Dil Raju. While an invincible hero escaping unhurt despite being in the line of fire is a pretty common and routine occurrence in Telugu cinema, it is high time the makers take a note of the Law of Diminishing Returns. At some point, the gloss and the technical finesse stop compensating these inane and idiotic - heroism elevation concepts. Too much of thread work in the movie and an ear shattering background score every time Prabhas appears on the screen may provide an enriching viewing experience for about fifteen minutes. But continue this onslaught for three hours and you can only feel pity for the hapless viewer.
Munna is a bad product from Dil Raju. While the first half is tolerable, it goes downhill right from the so called interval bang aided deftly by an overdose of tear jerking sequences and unrealistic reactions by the acting fraternity of the movie.
Music is passable and Prabhas has nothing much to do in the movie - except to look like a macho man and mouth ferocious lines albeit with a wooden face. He manages to do it convincingly. Iliana is back to her crowning khatarnak glory. She will not be remembered for either her performance or her appearance in this movie.
Like an oasis, Kota Srinivasa Rao excels in a neatly written small role. Prakash Raj goes through the motions mechanically but convincingly.
All in all, Munna is an avoidable flick if you are looking for a good entertainer. On the other hand if like mindless violence and superhero movies that defy logic in every step of life, you will love this movie.
The choice is yours.
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