Avatar spree

This time it’s the movie review… and the movie is none other than the much hyped DASAVATHARAM by Dr. Padmashree Kamal Hassan… I watched this movie 2 weeks back in the only Cinema in Singapore that shows Tamil movies. The most pathetic part is that the cinema don’t have online or phone bookings on top of that no DTS or special equipments.. its more a sort of village cinema with basic facilities to pass through the govt.’s basic standards requirements criteria. Highly pathetic and totally irritating for 10$ that u pay… moving on !!!

I was damn curious to see the movie purely due to the hype created for it… Kamal Hassan is one of the few actors/technician who attracts general audiences with his unique approach to the movie… Though I am not a ardant fan of him, I appretiate his talent in many movies… Few are…

Anbay Sivam – The best to say that the god is with in human
Salangai Oli – His olden master class
MMKR, Kathala Kathala, PKS, Panchathanthiram Etc.. – Comedy block busters
Kuruthipunal, Hey Ram – Classic reality

The list goes on.. lets get in to the focus of the topic….

Again, Kamal outclassed all with his core acting talent… but I felt he acted quiet too many characters which I felt not needed when I looked for the first time… later I realizd those characters are needed and appretiated the theme and story…. As the name suggests the movie is all about 10 avatars that does ther bit to save the world… if you have seen the movie, the avatar and description are as below which I found in a discussion board…

1. Krishna avatar - Vincent PoovaraghavanLord krishna is actually a dalit, he is dark-skinned [shyamalam]. He saved draupadi when she was being violated and he was the actual diplomat in mahabharatham. Lord krishna dies of an arrow striking his lower leg. Now look at how vincent was introduced.. he appears when asin is about to be molested and he saves her like draupadi. Vincent is the dalit diplomat, fights for land issue [soil issue to be exact] and dies from the metal rod striking his leg. Oh even five of vincent’s men are drugged at P. Vasu’s.. sounds familiar???

2. Balarama avatar - Balarama naiduThis is an easy given. as the name suggests and the role personifies you can easily get it.

3. Mathsya avatar - Ranagaraja nambinambi is thrown into water in an act of trying to save lord from being thrown into sea, though vainly. what more clue do you want?

4. Varaha avatar - Krishnaveni paattiDuring the mukunda song, krishnaveni paatti does varaha avatar in the shadow puppetry. The frame freezes on it for a second. there is the clue. Moreover, in varaha avatar lord actually hides earth so as to protect life forms. Here too krishnaveni hides the germs - life form inside the statue so as to protect.

5. Vamana avatar - Kalifulla khanremember in vamana avatar, lord vishnu takes the vishvaroopa, that is the giant form! Hence the giant kalifulla here symbolises vamana avatar.

6. Parasurama avatar - Christian FletcherParasurama is actually on an angry killing spree and killed 21 generations of the particular kshatriya vamsa. Hence the real KILLER… Guess what thats what our Fletcher is! He comes around with the gun [modern upgrade for axe] and kills everyone around. I have to check if he kills 21 people though.

7. Narasimha avatar - Shingen Narahashifirst of all the name itself is a play on the words singam [means lion in tamil] and narasimha [the avatar being symbolised]. Lord Narasimha manifests himelf to kill the bad guy and he also teaches prahaladha. In the movie, he shows up to kill the killer fletcher! and is also a teacher.. Lord Narasimha had to kill the asura with bare hands and hence the martial arts exponent here.. get it?

8. Rama avatar - Avatar SinghLord Rama stands for the one man one woman maxim, kind of symbolising true love.. Here Avatar portrays that spirit by saying that he loves his woman more than anything and wants to live for her.

9. Kalki avatar - Govindaraj RamasamyAs you know, the hero in kaliyug can be none other than the Kalki avatar!!!

10. Koorma avatar - BushThis is the most loose adaptation I couldn’t clearly comprehend. But if you look at the real koorma avatar, the lord is the turtle/tortoise that helps in stirring the ksheera sagara and bringing out the amruth. This essentially creates war among the devas and asuras. Similarly today Bush facilitates war between you know whom… May be Kamal also indicates that this avatar is a bit dumb like the tortoise…

There are few positive and encouraging (to new movie makers) points handled in the movie

- The concept is the key and the way they modernized the 10 avatars is an awesome idea
- Balaram Naidu is my favourite who acted brilliantly with perfectly needed humour to his character.. hats off
- Climax was awesome with the sentence ‘ Kadavul ilainu naa solalai aana irunthiruntha nalla irunthirukum’
- I am thinking wat more I could tell but nothingz standing in my mind… hahaha

The story is ok… the concept is great… the 10 avatars of kamal acted wonderfully as it is no surprise… 1-2 songs are hear’able… but I felt the following ‘letting down’ factors…

Make up:

Fletcher, Singh and few are ok… though I wont say marvelous and all… but the kaifullah and Paati were irritating… I can see the glare in the face and it clearly shows it’s a make up (did they paid that make up guy from Hollywood properly ?? or his name was projected for name sake ?) Gosh !!!

Music:

I have no idea why A R Rehman is not pinned in for this amazing concept… HR music is uniform one normally… this movie has only average songs… am sure there are lots of in-state talents like yuvan, vidyasagar, harris jeyaraj, ilayaraja who can do much much better than this…. I am not sure about the idea of bringing this useless musician….

Non-Racy Screen play:

There was many points in screen where the screen play wasn’t appealing at all… Firstly, Govind starts the movie with his speech which is at 100 mph speed and moved to 12th century sets before a lay man could realize wat he is speaking about… then all those Govind- Asin comedies which doesn’t fit well to the intensity of the problem.. If this movie is about some concept and a classic they should have excluded this non-geling comedy … if they wanna project as an entertainer, the research for the movie is not required. Silly scenes like the bullet takes away the singh’s cancer, nimbi character overacts to show he is body builder, paati being hyperactive at the age of 95, govind travels to India over the courier box so easily etc.. could have been avoided

Stunts:

Every one (hero, villan, heroine) jumping in the movie as they like… ironically, all the time they are doing safe landing…. Am not sure this is a lollu sabha kind of comedy or a serious stunt… Its deftly not convincing.. The pleasing stunt was the Japanese and fletcher fighting in the climax (its top class infact)… no other managed to capture my attention….

Visual Effects:

I seriously cant understand whats so amzing in this movie on visual effects… is it like I expected too much to match the perfection in Hollywood like spider man or mask …?? The visual effects in independence day was better even it was taken long long ago… did they forgot that thre are better softwares to get realistic visual effects…. The initial scene where nimbi is taken to immerse in to the sea was crap… the tsunami set wasn’t a catchy one though the effort was immaculate to get that scene…

K S Ravikumar:

Doesn’t look like a ravikumar kind of movie… had he went on a vacation once the movie started? Or he changed all his style of directing to go with other big heads involved in the script… no idea la…. I can see ravikumar only in the name in credits but no credit to him at all…

Oh man am going over the limit already.. the disastarous size of the post was not my intention but I was worried that too much of money went in for this mixed reviewd movie… this is supposed to be a mega hit movie for the money, concept and kamal but lots of factors had jumped in to spoil the output and overall my review is ‘OK movie to watch once’