Movie Reviews
Summary: With a central theme that revolves around the Almighty, Kamal's Dasavatharam walks through several threads of story that spans through centuries. On the whole, the movie will surely live the interest that's created around it. The story is not mind-boggling, but well, who'd watch this movie for its story! Watch the movie and you wouldn't be disappointed a bit. What's it all about? The story starts in the 12th century, with differences between Shaivas and Vaishnavas in South India. This part of the story, however, is not the central theme. The central character is that of a scientist that tries to save the world from abuse of biological warfare funded by the U.S. government. The movie culminates in the tsunami that destroyed so many lives, trying to explain why God would let such calamities happen. At the same time, the movie doesn't end up turning the atheist protagonist into a theist, which is appreciable. Performances: Kamal Hasan appears as a Sreevaishnava devotee of 12th century (Rangaraja Nambi), Scientist in the USA (Dr. Govind Raju), President of America (George Bush), old lady (Krishnaveni), pop singer (Avathar Singh), RAW official (Balaram Nadar), Ex-CIA agent and killer (Chris Fletcher), an oppressed Christian social activist (Vincent Punyakoti), a Muslim (Kaliph-ullah), and a Japanese martial arts master. In all these roles, he excels with very different body language. In fact, he's so different that the makeup and performance for some roles is unrecognizable. Asin appears as a traditional brahmin girl totally devoted to God and trying to protect the idol of the Lord all through. She does an okay job but her role could have been etched better. Her constant accusations on the hero without trying to understand the situation was sometimes routine. Jayaprada has a little role opposite the pop singer. She doesn't even have more than a couple of dialogues to mouth, and she shakes her leg in one song, and that's all there's to it. Mallika Sherawat as an aide and translator to Fletcher has a short but important role that she handles very rightly. Her routine act of wooing was used in helping the killer. The dubbing voice used for Mallika was apt too. Rest of the cast is all experienced enough to do the needful. Technical Departments: Makeup, Photography and Visual effects are the expected highlights of the film, and they are indeed impressive. George Bush makeup was a bit too taut sometimes but much closer to the original than the stills that circulated around the WWW in that name. It was nice of the makers to show the makeup artistes working behind the scenes for all the ten roles, at the end of the movie. However, the makeup does get artificial to some extent, though the makers should be appreciated for this bold step. Visual effects were quite good and comparable with the Hollywood films. The last fight between the killer and martials arts teacher (both played by Kamal Hasan) is particularly impressive as far the effects go. The tsunami is shown well, albeit a bit artificial at times. Of particular mention is also the faint reflection of RAW official and scientist (both played by Kamal Hasan) in the glass behind them, during the interrogation scene. Also, using various height for various characters was impressive. The taking has some inconsistencies and absurdities, such as showing both sects (Vadagalai and Thengalai) of Sree Vaishnavaites in the same family, showing the CM of Dec. 2004 (tsunami time) Jayalalithaa supervising the tsunami damage from a helicopter (cut scene) but referring to Karunanidhi as Tamilnadu CM, showing the scientist's name in Telugu subtitles as "Govind Ramachandran" while his name in Telugu version is Govind Raju, using the Shaiva piligrim town Chidambaram for a Vaishnava-based story (for political equality?), cancer getting cured with a gunshot, etc.. Dialogues are okay. Comedy is minimal but in good taste, particularly through the RAW official's role. The director touches through several aspects including Telugu language not being used for conversations among Telugus, smuggling of sand in beaches, U.S. President Bush's spending money on destructive technologies, etc. Songs fail to impress, both because of music (Himesh Reshammiya) and choreography. DeviSri Prasad's re-recording is fitting. Bottom Line: The movie doesn't have a strong story-line and gets the typical K.S. Ravikumar-way (a la Panchatantram) of chasing one another, but is worth watching as Kamal's magnum opus. The story might not catch up well with all sections of audiences.
Reviewed by NaChaKi © Copyright by Telugucinema.com
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