WARNING: spoilers ahead!

As Then says: Inthe robottum love naale vinapoche….

Watched this at Sunway Pyramid. There were some technical problem because the dialogue went missing for about 10 secs each time, happened about 5-6 times during the first half of the movie. Ticket cost RM14: RM11.20 for ticket and 2.8 for tax. Cinema was about 1/3 full (60+ people) for morning show.

Initial Thoughts:

The ending scene which involved animation was definitely new for an Indian movie (and even in English movies, I have not seen such animations) and is a welcomed innovation in that sense. However this involves humongous cost, so not sure how many other movies can afford to follow this track.

Some scenes were copied/derived from other movies like Matrix, Terminator, I Robot and so on. The robot reminds us of Sonny from I Robot.

Acting: Rajini’s dual role was OK. Improved dance moves, variety of fashion (ala Sivaji) and style. However, I have a feeling that other actors could have been put in his place and the movie will still be a crowd-puller. The traditional Rajini “magic” was not that evident, apart from some dialogues, facial expression, and acting. His acting as the robot in a villanous mode is worth mentioning as he did a good job. In fact, I’d say the villain role suits him better than the scientist role. Think back 16 Vaithinile, or 6il Irunthu 60 Varai to imagine Rajini in a character role.

Aiswarya. Well if you are into watching beautiful married mid 30s women dancing around like peacock/camel/chicken (whatever it is) in revealing clothes and kissing Rajinikanth 10-20 times, then you would be entertained. Again, you could imagine Shreya or Nayanthara or some other actresses in this role.

The Story:

Story was inspired by a short story by Tamil writer the late Sujatha (if I’m not mistaken) and it took director Shankar about 10 years to finally make this movie. The movie marks Rajinikanth as India’s highest paid Actor (about Rs20 crores + profit sharing) and Aiswarya earned about Rs6 crores, making her the highest paid actress in India. The producers have already recouped their investment as distributions rights were sold of for more than the production cost which is Rs160++ crores or RM112 million as of Oct 2010.

If you are interested on such robot themed stories, also read books by Isaac Asimov who talked about the 3 laws of robotic.

The theme of the movie is about “how if a robot can have emotions and falls in love?”. Rajini plays dual role – as scientist Dr Vasigaran (aka Vasi) and the robot Chitti the Robo. His lady love is Sana (Aiswarya, who age is showing now), a medical student. How a medical student can fall in love with a scientist is not covered in the movie. Maybe she flunked few times and is not a young 20-something student.

Story goes that Dr Vasi has spent about 10 years of his life researching on making humanoids (robots that look like humans) for the Indian Army. He thinks that soldiers life can be saved by using robots in battle.

There are some scenes to display Chitti’s capability and falability as well. We can see how Chitti cooks, helps Sana to cheat in her exams, and also how Chitti fights bad guys who attack them in the train.

However, Dr Vasi’s prototype Chitti fails at the evaluation process by the government department. The evaluation was led by Dr Vasi’s mentor Prof Bhora (Actor Danny Denzongpa) who is envious of Dr Vasi (student doing better than teacher syndrom). The Prof is also trying to creat such robots and sell them to the highest bidder (in case you are still not clear, he’s the villain). Prof Bhora highlights that Chitti doesn’t know emotions and can’t differentiate right from wrong. He just follows orders. The evaluation fails. As dejected Dr Vasi leaves the department, they encounter an apartment complex on fire. Dr Vasi orders Chitti to save the victims trapped in the fire. One of the victim was a young teenage girl who was bathing. She’s in the middle of a burning building and was more concerned of her modesty than her life, shouting “i’m not dressed!”. Chitti answers “so am I” and scoops her off into safety. The media focuses on the robot saving a naked girl. The girl was embarassed and attempts to run away from the onlookers and media, whereby she is hit by an oncoming vehicle and dies. This further angers Dr Vasi and reinforces Prof Bhora’s claims. Dr Vasi scolds Chitti, but Chitti doesn’t understand what wrong it did.

Prof Bhora later tells Dr Vasi that the government is planning to cancel the project as its considered a failure (the death of the girl becomes major news). Dr Vasi asks for some time to figure out how to add “emotion” into Chitti. The Prof gives him a month. Rajini tries to impart knowledge on emotions, senses, feeling, spiritualism, life and death, etc into Chitti. One day, lightning strikes Chitti, but he seems to be OK.

When all seems to fail, and Dr Vasi was cursing Chitti, Chitti talks back in anger. Success! The robot could feel anger! He is sent for evaluation again, and passes. However, trouble is brewing because the “emotion” module in Chitti is starting to interfere with Chitti’s “dos and don’ts” rules. He helps a lady to give birth, and Sana kisses him, causing him to feel the emotion of “love” (???). Soon Chitti’s thoughts stray towards obtaining Sana, at all costs. There’s one scene where Chitti tries to find a mosquito that bit Sana and there’s some dialogue between the mosquito colony and Chitti! Maybe these scene were added to excite children. Anyway, Chitti starts to compete with Dr Vasi for Sana’s attention as well. During Sana’s birthday, Chitti kisses Sana (censored) and this angers/shocks Dr Vasi. Chitti reveals that he feels “love” for Sana and wants her. He argues with Dr Vasi. Sana explains to Chitti why its not possible for human to love and live with a robot. Chitti walks away in disappointment.

At night, Prof Bhora appears to talk to Chitti, trying to influence Chitti to come to him. Chitti says no.The next day, a final evaluation with the Army was conducted and during the evaluation, Chitti does not perform as expected. Instead, his antics embarassed Dr Vasi as Chitti talked about his “love” for Sana, asking the army officers to not make war but fall in love! An angry Dr Vasi takes Chitti back to his office and breaks him to pieces. Chitti is then disposed in the garbage dump site.

Chitti manages to assemble itself and when Prof Bharya goes looking for it, it manages to enter his car and he brings it back to his lab. There, Prof Bhora reassembles Chitti with the help of Dr Vasi’s ex-assistants Karunas and Santhanam. However, Chitti reveals his “neural schema” to the Prof in the return for the Prof helping to reassemble Chitti. The Prof also adds an “destruction module” that allows Chitti to wreck havoc. He plans to use Chitti as prototype to sell his robot soldiers to some terrorist group. A newly reassembled Chitti’s first focus is his lady love. As it is, Chitti was reassembled on the same day as Dr Vasi’s wedding to Sana. Chitti attacks the wedding hall and kidnaps Sana.

Chitti works on creating more copies of himself, essentially creating an army of Chittis. He kills Prof Bhora as well. The police come after Dr Vasi since the robot is committing many crimes in the city. Dr Vasi clarifies that his robot has been dismantled and he suspects that maybe Prof Bharya is behind this. They rush to Prof Bhora’s lab and find him dead. Meanwhile, Chitti had captured the government department where he was evaluated, and uses it as a base to create more robots like him. Sana is kept as a hostage there. Chitti tries to force himself on Sana, saying that he’s creating an robot embryo, and soon Sana can be carry the world’s first human-robot baby! She faints.

Dr Vasi manages to enter the building and communicates with Sana. He asks her to distract Chitti as much as possible while the army and police try to stop Chitti.

The power supply to the government department area is cut, and soon, the robots fall down one by one due to inability to recharge. However, Chitti manages to recharge itself by using battery from a car, and other robots start to do the same. The battle between robots and humans start. The robots can combine and become various shapes such as a huge ball, baseball bat, drill, giant robot, tower, snake, and so on. Many policemen and soldiers die while Dr Vasi tries in vain to disable the robots by using worm (a kind of computer virus) and demagnetisation. Finally, they manage to capture Chitti and remove the “destruction module” in him, making him normal again.

The court sentences Dr Vasi to death for creating a robot that caused so much death and destruction. However, Chitti comes to Dr Vasi rescue by revealing that it was Prof Bharya who did the actual misdeed. Thus, the court releases Dr Vasi and orders Chitti to be dismantled. Chitti gives some advices while being dismantled.

Forward 20 years, and we see Chitti’s body part in an museum. Some school children visit the museum and a girl asks the guide why Chitti was dismantled 20 years ago, and Chitti answers “because I started to think!”

Summary:

The movie does have an advantage of exposing moviegoers to science and technology, and is far far away from the regular fighting scenes we see in Vijay/Barath/Arjun etc movies. It may well trigger students to learn more about technology, instead of getting involved in gangsterism and violence.

Comedy is not really handled by Karunas and Santhanam. In fact, their roles and many others are wasted. Could have just put anyone else and wouldn’t made a difference. Comedy comes from Rajini’s dual roles.

The movie’s main attraction is the technology. Its something that Indian cinemas has not seen before. All the rest as the usual masala stuff.

As for science and technology terms/theories in the movie, some are believable, other are not. Its just a movie, so we can take as creative liberty. As with many other Tamil movies, there are plenty of loopholes and illogical scenes which will make you go mad if you start to analyse. So, take it with a pinch of salt and enjoy the movie 🙂

Direction: Typical direction with some loopholes. Its a director’s movie as the actors scope is reduced. Focused too much on technology until some scenes were neglected. Could have been edited to reduce length and make it more compact.

Story: New story for Tamil cinema, focusing on technology and different issue.

Acting: The main actors Rajini and Aiswarya were the focus. Traditional Rajini fans may be disappointed to see lack of style. He did well acting as a robot and an villainous robot. Aiswarya didn’t have any problem looking pretty and batting her eyes from time to time. Nothing much to shout about. Other actors just fill up the spaces, nothing earth shattering.

Songs: This is where to movie tops. Nice songs by AR Rahman, especially Kadhal Anukal, Kilimanjaro, Irumbile Oru Idhayam. Must listen to the lyrics carefully to appreciate it. Songs are a marvel due to the lyrics that married technology with poetry. The scenery for songs were simple and nice. However, somethings just doesn’t feel right with Aishwarya’s dance steps.

Conclusion: Watch this for Rajini, Aishwarya lovers, and for those looking for new angle in Tamil cinema. Wholesome entertainer for family, not violent or adult themed.

Cast: Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa, Karunas, Santhanam, etc.

Genre: Sci-Fi, Action.

Acting : 6/10

Story : 6.5/10

Special Effects: 8/10

Cinematography: 8/10

Overall Oomphness: 7/10

Note: Read about Endhiran’s achievements at Wikipedia. BTW, do you know the villain is a well known singer who acted with Brad Pitt, won Padmashree Award and is married to a princess? Read about Danny Denzongpa at Wikipedia as well 🙂