My Review of Enthiran (The Robot)

 

A movie that takes more than two years to be completed inevitably evokes curiosity to any avid movie-watcher. Added to that, a combo of our one-and-only Rajinikanth, director Shankar, Aishwarya Rai and A.R. Rahman pushes the expectations to unimaginable propositions.

Enthiran, touted to be the director’s dream project, relies heavily on the screen presence of the superstar and the visual  extravaganza. The baseline of the movie is very thin and simple. Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth) is a scientist whose desire is to develop a robot, which would help in serving the Indian army. Sana (Aishwarya Rai), a college student pioneering in medicine plays his love partner. 

After 10 years of hard work he successfully develops a robot, names it Chitti and unveils it at a robotic conference. Chitti is taken to the AIRD (Artificial Intelligence Research and Development) center for final evaluation that would enable it to be deployed in the Indian Army. But a member of the AIRD, Prof Bohra (Danny Denzongpa) rejects Chitti citing that it is dangerous to human life and does not know the difference between good and evil. Bohra, co-incidentally is also the mentor of Vaseegaran.

In order to realize human feelings, Vaseegaran teaches Chitti various kinds of emotions such as joy, sorrow, anger etc. But this spells disaster as Chitti falls in love with Sana, after she gives it a kiss. Chaos dooms as Chitti plays havoc at an evaluation center and in return, Vaseegaran dismantles it. The rest of the plot is how Chitti returns to torment Vaseegaran and his mayhem-creating activities.

The whole movie depends on two things – Rajinikanth and Visual effects. The charisma of the superstar is still intact even after such a long tenure in the cinema industry. Chitti’s mannerisms (especially the ‘black sheep’ scene) are sure to be lapped up by kids. Aishwarya Rai, though looks gorgeous, sets a new benchmark for bad acting. Danny Denzongpa as the cunning Prof, along with Karunas and Santhanam as assistant scientists, do not have a substantial role to play.

Technically, it is the best Rajinikanth ever taken with high-class visuals by Randy. The costumes of Aishwarya Rai needs a special mention. The money spent and the effort put in for the CG work shows off in the climax as the viewers are awestruck by the brilliance of the graphics.

POSITIVES:

• No punch dialogues and no intro songs (Considering the global audiences i guess)
• Robo Rajini
• Looks of Aishwarya Rai
• Terrific visuals and computer-graphics   
• Dialogues 

NEGATIVES:

• Movie might not cater to rural audiences as the concept of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Neural Schemas might be alien
• Poor Re-recording in the second half
• Languid screenplay
• Unnecessary scenes and bad build-ups to songs (Mosquito, one-day boyfriend scenes to mention a few)
• Bad Editing (Movie will definitely get chopped after 3 days)
• Predictable ending

Overall Enthiran, although having a wafer-thin script and a bland screenplay, is definitely worth watching for the visuals and the superstar. Well done Mr. Shankar!!