1.Story,screenplay and dialogues:

Shankar is one director whose stories have always been one dimensional and that’s the reason he is able to reach the audience. He doesn't add strong layers and complexity to story. His stories fall under good vs evil issue except for Boys.

Now taking about Endhiran, Shankar has a one line story of a scientist creating a robot which will have the emotions of man. Making it simple so layman also understands. But where he stands apart is in the screenplay. He knows what to present at which point.

Now coming to dialogues, this film would have been a dumb robot unless for late writer Sujatha. Shankar-Sujatha combination has worked magic in most of the Shankar's films. Indian, Mudhalvan, Boys and Anniyan all still remain in mind for their super dialogues. Sujatha's dialogue raises the movie to next level. So many places we can feel the classic touch of Sujatha. Like when the robot talks the first time it says "Hello World". When it robot introduces itself it says "Speed 1 Terrahertz, memory 1 Zettabyte". These are classics. Same to say when scientist Rajni introduces the robot in a conference. Questions asked by the scholars like fibonacci number, prime number and nattukurunji raga have the masterpiece of Sujatha which no other writer in Indian industry would have thought of. Sujatha being an engineer himself and also dialogue writer could have come up with these dialogues. Think about the scene where robot tells the doctor about the primitive child delivery method. That is the genius in Sujatha which made the scene better.

The last 10 minutes where the robot dismantles itself is similar to "En Iniya Iyindra" series by Sujatha. The dialogues are top notch particularly when robot tells; "Kadhalicha robotkuda nut kaididum" gets the claps from the audience. The credit of making the movie look realistic is because of Sujatha's dialogues. This movie would have just been a fiction and not science fiction without Sujatha "DOT".

2.Animatronics and Special effects:

This movie works great for its super special effects. Stan Wilson Studios and Industrial Light and Magic LA based Animatronics and visual effects have made the computer graphics work look real. But all with money and great studios cannot create a great effect. It needs a lot of visualization from the direction and cinematographer to do this. Shankar has a great visualization skills which we could see in almost all of his movie songs where comes up with great stunning effects.

"Athiradi karan" from Sivaji, "Boom Boom" from Boys, "Mudhalvane" in Mudhalvan are amazing piece of gelling graphics with cinema frame.

Shankar has already said that he used a 2D technique called "Previz" where they made how the scene needs to look and based on the 2D visuals the special effects were created by the LA studios. This is the amount of preproduction work required and visualization required by Shankar and Ratnavelu. This movie had 1500 shots that required CG and special effects. Think the amount of preplanning required. "Arima Arima" with 100 Rajni was taken so perfectly that CG was not seen much.

Scenes in the movie like the fight scene on train, last 30 minutes of robot forming various forms and combination scene with Rajni and Aishwarya looked real. Planning and execution was perfect except for the fire accident scene where graphics seems to be a let down.

3.Using the stars:

Rajni is an underrated actor who started his career with strong movies but trade pushed him the superstardom and tried to utilize his super skills for their film's success. Starpower of Rajni always took over the silent actor in him. His style was more utilized than his acting. He has donned villain role and character artist roles in early time of his career. Shankar had rightly tapped the actor in Rajni by giving 3 different roles in the same movie by feeding Rajni the star what he wanted to do for long time. Vasigaran the scientist was best role of Rajni as he had to take pains to act without punch dialogues.

Chitti 2.0 with the "hmmmmay...hmmmay" black sheep dialogue woke up the villian in Rajni. Chitti the good robot was the pick of the lot which was similar to Indhran in Thillu mullu without mouthstache and had comic relief.

Shankar who always played with strength of the star has underplayed the main hero and succeeded.

Aishwarya Rai is rightly said one who can even make robot fall in love. She is an eternal beauty and knows her limited acting skills and she performs. She has really danced well in this movie.

4.Technical Crafts:

All the technicians have played a major role in this film and put each of their best. Rahman the Mozart of Madras rocks with "Kilimanjaro" and "Arima Arima" has given a new kind of music to Tamil audience. Other songs are nice and background rocked in last 30 minutes. Chitti 2.0 theme music was catchy. Vairamuthu was classic in "Pudhiya Manidha". Madan Karky's "Irumble" and "Boom Boom Robo da" has caught the young kids.

Sabu Cyril the art director has taken pain in creating the Vasigaran's lab and AIRD which are the highlights. Even in songs "Irumbele oru Idhayam" was standing high in art department.

Stunt man "Peter Hein" and Yuen of US fame has done their best. Rajni's double in the train fight sequence was extraordinary. Last fight scene on Kathipara flyover was perfect with cars falling and jumping.

Resul Pookutty the sound designer has captured the mood in every scene.

Cheorography by Raju Sundaram, Prabhu Deva and Remo was cool. Rajni's double in chitti dance show was wonderful where chitti dances with Aishwarya.

Photography is already discussed and was the best ever in recent times.

Editor Anthony has again showed his best skills in complete editing.

Makeup by Bhanu was wonderful in showing superstar in 3 avatars. Chitti 2.0 was the best.

Costumes by Mary Vogt was wonderful.

Overall departments had given their best.

At last, wanted to end that it was the clear vision of Shankar what he wanted in screen and lovely dialogues of Sujatha that makes the film a magnum opus. True to their vision the movie rocked the entire country. Hope Shankar keeps delivering great movie like this but one person's experience which Shankar will miss is late Sujatha who was lifeline for most of his movies.

"Get ready folks" to see more Endhiran's in future this is a strong message Endhiran promises to Indian cinema.

By,
Prakash,
prakaschari@gmail.com