Friday, June 18, 2010

Raavanan

Two words best describe Raavanan - Vikram and Cinematography ! While the camera takes us to exotic locations and makes even normal locations look exotic, Vikram shines throughout with his powerful performance. As a die-hard Kamal fan, I can confidently say that Vikram can now take Kamal's place !

The name of the movie pretty much gives the plot away and of course there are classic manirathnam touches everywhere (spoiler warning!) - fearless Aishwarya jumping off the mountain or Vikram telling Ash that he is jealous of her husband or Ash mimicking Vikram's bak-bak-bak (which incidentally is my favorite scene!)

Prithviraj reminded me of one of those good looking guys that the heroines usually ditch for the hero. Although his role will not earn the sympathy of girls, his looks most certainly will.

Ash looks good but old. In some scenes, I missed the ''Iruvar'' Ash and then realised that she is not twenty two anymore with a sigh ! Her attempt at delivering tamil dialogues is pretty good.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee has done a good job in designing Ash's salwars but making her wear a pink sari with a black spaghetti top is like one of those Cannes fashion disasters (that Ash is famous for!)

None of the songs are given any importance and serve pretty much as re-recording pieces, which was fine with me since they did not hinder the flow of the movie.

Editing is hapazhard. Many discontinuities are noticeable....and is sometimes quite annoying !

What is missing is a powerful script and an even more powerful message, which are usually trademarks in a Mani movie. Mani has attempted another movie in his ''Iruvar'' genre but in spite of everything, I was left with a tinge of disappointment.

Well...here is the verdict....it is watchable and since it runs for less than 2 hours (and is thankfully not as long as Ramayana) and has its moments, you won't regret watching it.

PS: I will probably check out Raavan to see if Abhishek can live up to Vikram's performance.

6 comments:

  1. u got the tickets huh not bad...but wait a minute wr r u...still in india or back to germany...usually the editing will be sharp in his movies no...hmmm...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Any comments on Dialogues by Suhasini Maniratnam?? - not that anyone asked for it but my humble opinion is that it was $#*&
    and another one - The brand MANIRATNAM sold. Period. Nothin else was worth the hype the movie recvd. Gotta give it up for Vikram 'cos one can carry a role; but his' in the movie was a no-role and the worst part is that he is the protagonist......no defined role/script, no clear dialogues, and the camera always up close on him....... phew! deserves an oscar for even braving it...not even gonna discuss if he succeeded or not. and thanx "annoying" was the word i was looking for more than 48 hrs now.... spot on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. not really happy with ravan.. individual scenes are brilliant but the overall package is disappointing.. ARR might feel cheated.. His awesome songs were chopped/misplaced.. AB's acting is quiet rehearsed, the spontaneous reactions are missing.. samething with aish too..

    ReplyDelete
  4. @deepak
    saw it in India

    @viki
    I did wonder about some of the crappy dialogues and realised with a sigh that Sujatha was no more...dint know it was suhasini until afterwards

    @Bharath
    I always thought that AB gets his roles purely based on his appa's and wife's popularity (read requests). When I saw Vikram in Raavanan I knew immediately that AB wont be able to catch up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. mmm first positive response on the movie I heard so far...

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Musing Gal
    Like I said, the move is definitely watchable once just for the sake of cinematography, if its the tamil version, Vikram is another reason

    ReplyDelete

Hit Counter
Website Hit Counter I had decided to have a counter only after I hit a 1000 views and since it happened last week (as on 14 Dec 2009), now is the time to see some stats :)