dasavatharam - a movie review

SPOILER WARNING

pls do read the review below n do not watch the movie!!!

A never before attempt, in perhaps world cinema assayed by the very apt person, Dasavatharam seems to nullify all the expectations of even the hardcore kamal fan. Here is what i felt after seeing the movie with a bunch of friends, at satyam cineplex. It was a morning 730 show. Kaarthale enaku ezharai aarambichuduthu!!!!!

The movie starts off with a narration about scientific reasoning(chaos theoy), and immediately takes you back to the 12th century. The age, which kamal describes as one before jesus, allah or for that matter even hindu deities entered into politics. Being an iyengar himself, kamal speaks the bashai with ease. Authenticity, which was totally missing in Anniyan in portraying a vaishnavite, has been evinced to perfection. Right from the thirunaamam, to the dialect the vaishnavites speak, one could feel the legitimacy. Napoleon does not seem to be appropriate for his role, solely because of his pronunciation. He fails to be a potent king, often making mistakes in the tone of the dialogues and not so appropriate pronunciation. Other characters do not have much importance in this part of the movie, barring asin, who is kamal's wife, pleading for forgiveness on behalf of her husband. Computer graphics are bad, especially when kamal is being pierced. The men pierce through his flesh as though it is cloth!! The other scenes showing the boat and the statue are nice, if not becharming as in a hollywood movie. Even in later parts of the movie, namely the scenes involving the tsunami, visual effects suck!! A lot has been spent in making those scenes, but bad graphics spoils it all. Leaving the graphics part aside, the tsunami scenes are way too realistic.

Warping from the 12th century back to the future, the story introduces the hero, govind, a scientist involved in a multi billion dollar bio-weapons project. Out of love for the subject, kamal gives heart n soul for the project. Upon seeing the flagitious end to a lab monkey which consumes the serum, mistaking it for chocolate, he has some afterthought on the consequences of using bio-weapons. He then stalls the project, which is questioned by fellow scientists and objected by superiors. A corrupt boss, decides to eliminate govind, which is where we are introduced to another role donned by kamal, Fletcher ex CIA, the villain of the story. The rest of the movie is all about how govind tries to keep the vial containing the serum, from falling into Fletcher's hands. At this point, the story may set high hopes by making the viewer believe that its going to be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Read on to find how this is totally untrue!!

His quest of saving the vial from reaching the wrong hands takes kamal into India as a stowaway in a cargo plane. The bgm when he lands onto indian soil sucks!! Would anyone use 'saare jahaan se accha' for such a situation??

From this point, one by one all the other roles played by kamal are brought into picture. The first one being Balram Naidu, a police official. I should say, one of the best performances by kamal in terms of mannerisms and language. Most of the other roles by kamal in dasavatharam, barring poovarahan, the social activist, fail to impress. The role of poovarahan reminds us of the role in Anbe Sivam, another superb performance.

The paati seems to be from some other planet.. She seems to be around 70-75 years of age, kudos to the makeup artistes, but has enough energy and briskness of a teenager!! She almost runs towards the door when someone informs her about a parcel. Ive seen my own kollu-paati move around at a snails pace but this female makes your heart skip a beat!! I expected a lot of comedy from this role, but it was a disappointment. Some of the other roles played by kamal seem not required in the movie at all!!!

Mallika Sherawat once again proves she fits nothing other than dancing for item numbers. Rightfully by the director, not knowing what to do with her role in the rest of the movie, she is killed after sometime. Asin succeeds in irritating the viewer by simply polambifying about her perumal idol, even in grave situations. She seems so immature and totally ignorant of the gravity of the problem they are dealing with. For what she had mentioned in interviews about her practicing hard to get the iyengar accent, she fails miserably. It seems more like malayalee accent than iyengar.

Some roles like the tall muslim guy, the karate master, and even president Bush are not even required in the movie. MS Bhaskar does a neat job in his role as the dumb side-kick to Fletcher. Few people who go almost unnoticed in the movie are Chitti Babu, Ramesh Kanna, Vayyapuri. They are all noted comedians, who have been simply used as cameos. Ramesh Kanna lets us realise his prescence thats all.

With regard to the plot, everything hangs on coincidence. Some of the stunts remind you of aalavanthan, another stupid movie by kamal. It seems to be cliched, that everytime someone uses a bike to escape, something explodes in the background!!! The number of vehicular accidents people survive with just bruises, is unbelievable. The chase sequences in the construction site are very bad. Fletcher seems to have strength and powers like spiderman and batman in them. Ironically, the vial which shouldnt be subjected to even mild jerk according to govind, is taken on a rollercoaster ride throughout the movie. Another point to be noted is the ease with which govind as well as Fletcher commute in a new land. They seem to be knowing maps n routes to precision, not to mention driving indian vehicles.

The final fight sequence that ensues between Fletcher and the karate master is very good. The moves are not all superhuman, and there is enough realism. Throughout the movie, the way Fletcher kills each person, reveals his character of a cold blooded villain. Somw of the camera angles are fantastic. Good job by Ravivarman.

It seems so odd that people refer to NaCl as sodium chloride throughout, not realising that it is simply common salt. Even Bush seems to be not aware of the fact, he asks a stupid question to the scientists over phone. Lol!!!!

Kamal seems to have delved too much into the 10 roles that he forgot all about the story. Of course, no other actor could have pulled it off doing 10 roles. But again, one wonders if 10 roles are really needed for a movie?? It is clear that you cant justify all of them within 3 or 3 n 1/2 hours, when a person like kamal fails to do so. Some people said 'kamal romba yosichu eduthurukan, athu than puriyalai..' I say 'kamal nareya edathula yosikkave illai!!!'

In short, the movie is a bunch of 15-20 loose ends, tied together by an extremely thin storyline. The star of the movie is lady luck, who never lets down the hero. Flaws nu solla nareya iruku..Kamal n KS are very generous...
It becomes very predictable towards the end. Oru thadava palla kadichundu paakalam. Watching it once more, is suicide.

is kollywood still from kodambakkam ??

It is a well known fact that the name kollywood came up when someone felt that the tamil film industry was a combination of hollywood and kodambakkam. Of course, with regard to technology, we are moving closer to hollywood, but is the heritage of kodambakkam still retained??

Right from olden times, we have seen people being brought in from other regions, into tamil movies. But earlier, it used to be producers and to a minimum level, artistes too. At that point of time, society in tamil nadu was pretty conservative. Women were still restricted to households. It was indeed difficult to find heroines and so the import of heroines from other places was kind of justified.

In the past couple of decades, there have been several such imports. Simran, Jyotika, Nagma... Of course who can forget Kushboo, who literally ruled the industry during her peak. Most people do not even know their real names. How many of us know that the real name of Simran is Rishibala?? But here, i am not criticising them. They had the talent and got the opportunity to express it. There was a spot vacant in the tamil fiml industry.. the top notch heroine's, and these people got their chances.

But look at the scene today. Its difficult to even name a few heroines who can speak tamil, leave alone being of tamil origin. There are the few who can speak tamil, if not fluently, but more often their voice is dubbed by someone else. Like for example Trisha, in Aayitha Ezhuthu. The hi-society accent (konjam suzhichu suzhichu pesina) she had suited her role, but then this may not be ok for other movies.

No doubt, the number of new directors has increased a lot. But is there such a dearth of talent in our own state that each of these directors have to introduce a new face in their movies?? Scores of such 'heroines' have sprung up, especially in the last four or five years. Most of these females are models, who are picked up straight from the ramp. Some of them don't even know to portray basic emotions and have absolutely no idea of what dialogue they are 'enacting' for. As a result, there is very little, if not null, sync with the dubbing.

One reason that i attribute to this situation, is the fact that a new director has funding as a limitation during his first attempt at the big screen. With a new script in hand, he would not dare to approach an established heroine because she will demand a huge sum. So, he resorts to introducing a new face, but sadly as in most cases, it seems to be a big letdown. So to fill in this gap, some glam dolls are inserted into the movie in item numbers. Again these females are also scooped off the north simply because they are cheap, and are ready for some skin show. Whether item songs are necessary is not my argument presently, but they have become a standard ingredient in almost every movie.

Not only heroines, but over the past few years we have witnessed several popular singers from the north singing for tamil albums. Some of the good names are Sadhana Sargam, Udit Narayan. At least the former has learnt to pronounce lyrics properly over the years. Udit seriously has a long way to go. Mispronunciation spoils the beauty of a song even if it is sung by an enchanting voice (like the song from yaaradi nee mohini).

Seri.. ithayum mannichu vidalaam nu paathaa... now even music directors are being brought from elsewhere. Again, i am not criticising them, but i am very sure that we have enough musical geniuses in and around kollywood itself. Particularly, i was vexed by the arrival of Himesh to tamil music through Dasavatharam. With his hi-pitch, nasal tone, Himesh may be a sensation up in the north, but i feel his arrival may do more harm to the tamil industry than good. Indeed some of the songs are good in the album, but it is really important for a music director to feel the audience and to compose according to their liking. It is in that expanse that AR Rahman excels, and Himesh fails miserably.

Summing it up, if such a trend continues, then soon kollywood will lose its originality completely. The name will become an oxymoron one day. Sad.. isnt it?? A day will come, when the only thing tamil in the movie is the title, that too only for the rebate in tax..

the first one

Till sometime back i had been thinking blogs were just the voices of people polambifying about their problems.. Thanks to some of my friends, i have changed my opinion of them. Actually, the past two summers, i was busy with internships. This time i am totally jobless and am really bored of trying to find out new ways to kill time. So, here i am, stepping into blogging, as a new means to do timepass..