What’s hot?

A R Rehman’s songs, superior camerawork by K V Anand and amazing sets created by Thota Tharani are highlights of the film. Shankar has shot three songs superbly. They are –“Vaaji ..Vaaji Shivaji..”, “Sahara Puvvai ..” and “Dhee..Dhee..” Picturisation of songs is awesome.

Rehman’s music is excellent but it is camerawork that is persistently awesome. There is a lot of CG work which has been done well. Second half is good. Dialogues by Sreeramakrishna are nice. Peter Hain work’s Matrix like fights have no novelty.

What’s not!

Shivaji has weak script. Brings feeling of Déjà vu. It is too lengthy with 3 hours running time. Hero bashing up very small baddies for lengthy time is also bad. There are no heroic feats in the film actually. The message of unearthing black money and making it white is very simplistic. Many scenes defy the logic.

Bottom-line

Shivaji on the whole can be at best an average film. Rajnikant's Charisma, Shriya's glamor, post-interval scenes, great music, excellent picturisation and above all techncial gloss and stylized scenes can save it to some extent.

Some trivia

1. Rajnikant has played like NTR, ANR and Chiranjeevi in a song. On the dream song of Rajnikant and Shriya’s first night, both of them play for the songs of “Nee Kallu Cheptunnai ..” (from ANR’s Premabhishekam), “Aku Chatu Pinde Tadise..” (from NTR’s Vetagadu), “Abba Nee Tiyyani Debba..” (from Chiranjeevi’s Jagadekaveerudu Atiloka Sundari).

2. Rajnikant appears with gundu towards the climax and then he changes his name to NTR. That is N T Rangarao.