Kochadaiiyaan

Super star Rajnikanth has this charismatic larger than life image on screen that has made him famous all around the world. Using him in a motion capture animation film and delivering a shoddy output cannot be justified if the makers say they have budget limitations. Constructed on a wafer- thin idea that has all the elements of an outdated drama, only thing that would have made this Soundarya Rajnikanth film a phenomenal one was the quality of the animation, but sadly on a time where we are used to see quality stuff from Hollywood production houses, Kochadaiiyaan can’t even touch the quality of those old cartoon network Mahabharata 3D animation. Thanks to K S Ravikumar for adding some Rajni punch dialogs towards the very end of the movie which slightly reduced the pain.

The story focuses on the idea of legacy and revenge. Rana is the commander in chief of the army of Kalingapuri. After his great service for the kalingapuri, he is offered more privilege and he uses that to free a lot of war prisoners. There is a hidden agenda behind Rana’s acts that has something to do with his legacy. The movie reveals this mystery and mission of Rana.

There is nothing so amazing about the story line of Kochadaiiyaan. The hero worshipping act needed a strong Technical support which sadly was limited to sound effects and music. In my view only people who have never seen an animation film will find this movie interesting. Unlike any Rajnikanth films there is a strong silence in the cinema hall.

The direction is pretty mediocre from Soundarya or I should say that she couldn’t reduce the cheesy drama in KSR’s writing with her direction. The script is filled with predictability and the only portion that had the Rajni punch was the climax dialog bazi. Rajeev Menon’s cinematography ideas and the perfection in visual effects were in extremely different levels. The background score and music from A R Rahman are really good. The sound effects from Rassul Pookkutty was good but on screen the sync wasn’t that great.

I had plans to write about the acting as the movie was fundamentally Motion capturing. But criticizing those talented actors based on this low quality technology would be an insult to them. The animation suffers in dynamics and texturing. Most of the characters have swelled eyes. No motion capture can capture the classical dance with its perfection.

So to conclude, Kochadaiiyaan is forgettable. That Shiva Thandavam and some glimpses here and there looked good. I am going with a very generous 2/5 for Kochadaiiyyan. It’s like playing a video game without graphics card. With all due respect Mr Amitabh Bachchan, only you would divide history of Indian cinema as before and after Kochadaiiyaan.

By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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