The movie opens with Arya crashing into the water (à la Kaakha Kaakha ’s opening scene), about to be drowned, wherein he decides to narrate a romantic tale that happens on earth and on another planet where life exists similar to earth. A death causes both the worlds to cross paths wherein Arya on earth lands up on the other planet only to infuse the feeling of love, thereby making the planet more colorful as the flowers begin to blossom there (?!).
The only positive outcome that I can interpret from this wilted piece of narrative was the implicit representation of Tamil being the mother tongue even on another planet that has been shown to exist in an unknown place in our galaxy. Apart from that, all the bells and whistles that were added to represent the foreign planet was only an exhibition of mockery towards futuristic film making. This one coming from a much respected filmmaker like Selvaraghavan who hardly misses a chance to assail stereotypical revelations in Tamil cinema, even if it means to stir a hornet’s nest was the most disappointing revelation.
The movie never had anything going for it at any point during its course, neither the narration nor the much talked about CG and VFX work. A blatant and tacky rip off from the creatures that adorned Avatar was a huge let-down. Even Selva’s strength, an intense romance, also took a back seat in this one. Depicting Anushka as the bold and daring woman in the second world and a demure girl on earth was convincing. But the same cannot be mentioned about Arya, as his acting skills have been diminishing and has taken a beating off late. Supporting cast were not significant enough and hence not worthy to mention.
Weaving a story for the second world, with some white men/women running here and there, rendering dialogs in Tamil with some perfect and imperfect lip syncs, a Goddess and a bunch of men trying to abduct her were all goof-ups that none would buy at any point.
The vision of the director to represent an unconventional world that is devoid of love and to infuse it with love thereafter is to be appreciated, but the visuals and narrative should have supported him like pillars. Sadly there were no pillars at all and the director had to lose the game that was not played in the first place.
Technically the movie was very bad, especially the scene where Arya was supposed to fight with a creature that was called as ‘Lion’. A director like Selvaraghavan approving such a pathetically drawn out CG sequence was really disturbing. Even Ramanarayana’s movies would be having better VFX and CG works.
The music was good, but the BGM by Anirudh was out of sync with the narrative. The movie at 2:40 hrs was a total drag and nowhere did it seem to appeal.
Its advisable for Selva to make a hard stop at making such painful and really expensive experiments and instead concentrate in narrating down-to-earth subjects with a riveting screenplay where his strength lies unperturbed.
Verdict: Avoidable
Rating: 1 / 5
.jpg)