I’m not a targeted viewer for the Hunger Games movie. Yet I decided to watch it on the opening weekend and it was as expected, not very interesting. Having read a couple of similar game-of-death books and even watched a very comparable movie back in the day, to me, hunger games is a missed opportunity. It is very obvious that the producers decided to reduce a violent hungry movie into a PG 13 to laugh their way to the bank and it seems like ‘the odds are ever in their favor’. In that process they killed the possibility to make it into a spine-chilling thriller.
Here is how the screenwriter’s palette looked like – a dystopian post-apocalyptic world, an emotional family sub-plot, worker class revolution, gothic political rulers, game-of-death, a forest where every inch is monitored through video cameras and ofcouse designed-on-demand AutoCAD wild animals. The movie’s payback does not match the build-up to it. Mel Gibson would have aced through a story like this, just like how he managed to pull-off an apocalypto.
I was actually bought into the movie during the first 20 minutes and then as they delayed and delayed the start of the game, it seemed to me like they were going in for a kill but what do I know, just read the first line of the post again.
Mayakkam enna was a wasted effort, devoid of substance and class. It didn’t engage me as a viewer, didn’t bother to develop its rather cardboard characters and never stopped to pretend that it was a raw but class movie. All this I never wanted to say about a Selvaraghavan film but I do now. Given that I’m a huge fan of Selva’s films, I wanted to enjoy Mayakkam Enna and was already sold on the film although with just normal expectations.
The whole dating, fraaandship piece was artificial and the friends didn’t seem to belong together at all. Without dwelling scene-by-scene on why I was irritated, I guess the story wasn’t rich, its characters very superfluous without much of character, the very pretentious music that tends to cover up the nagging screenplay and of course some really bad acting. The so called ‘genius’ angst was badly expressed and its lead character gets a handful of accents that it confuses the heck out of a viewer.
The plot shifts rather swiftly from what it was trying to detail to a completely different dimension. Although it’s not uncommon for a selva film, this jump cut was crazy. How much ever one wanted to submit to the director’s thinking, he doesn’t support the shift with good reasons. If the ‘irumbu manushi’ issue was the point of the premise then the first half was totally wasted and if it was the ‘genius’ angst of the antagonist that formed the crux of the premise then the whole movie never wrapped around it clearly.
Simply put, its a movie to avoid even if you are Selvarghavan fan. I wish this is the last time I get to write such a review for a Selvaraghavan film.
I actually didnt like the expression of AB at the end but who cares. Usually the first look of any Mani Ratnam movie has no resemblence to any other movies, other than his own. But this teaser reminds me of Omkara, don’t know why. Nevertheless, good hype so far.
I like some parts of Cheran’s work but I never thought I would look forward to a film in which he stars. If not for Myshkin, this still photograph from Yudham Sei wouldn’t have landed here. Its only films like these that I look forward these days and not the Yendhiran types. Maybe I’ve grown old but hype works only in your twenties.
I hope Myshkin’s previous unreleased film, Nandalala hits the screen very soon. If not, the producers should release it direct-to-DVD.
Myshkin is by far my biggest hope of tamil cinema followed by or preceded by, in some cases, Selvaraghavan. Oh yeah, there is Mani Ratnam, as always.
