Yet another movie that segregates the movie watching crowd as “have seen” and “haven’t yet”. With the first part already an Industry hit, expectations on the second part were quite high. The book being a block buster success, surely helped in both the movies getting the required prerelease hype organically. Was the second part a worthy successor, winnings wise to the first, is a million-dollar question. Unlike to the reviews and feedback for part 1, second part didn’t have much of comparison happening with what was there on the book that was missed but rather how much Mani Ratnam had changed the story in itself!! Starting with the omissions, Poonguzhali character, who plays a major role in safeguarding and healing the wounded prince, has been almost totally neglected. Even in first part, her character was not even a shade of how much it was detailed on the book. But the fact that, as a screenplay team, they had decided to water down this role had been consistent across both the movies. The less mentioned about the Sendhan Amudhan character the better for there was nothing to write home about his role in the movie at all. While the book had a “Prisoner of Zenda” kind of twist, which even the author seems to have admitted, was introduced to increase the story run time. That role has been mercilessly chopped off from the movie and the “twist” ignored. The other major aspect which was one of the highly controversial portions in the movie being the death of Aditha Karikalan. People who waste no resource in thrashing Brahmin community have been voicing out vigorously on how the “kalvettu”s are clear on the identity of the killers, while the author, out of caste sympathy had hidden the perpetrators’ identity. Mani Ratnam goes a step further and shows it like a suicide-ish murder, with further muddling around who “else” took part in the kill. The entire furor has been around the killers not being mentioned by their caste from a society that has been crying against even real time mention of caste on the names of the people is hypocrisy at its best. The worst part of the movie, to me personally, would be the climax war scene. Even stage plays would’ve been more extravagant and grander in depicting the war. In recent times, including the multiple web series and movies, this was the most underwhelming war scene. The end portion, which takes up a whole big chapter in the book, resembles the movies of 50’s and 60’s where the entire main cast comes together having changed heart and pose for a “Subam” title card. Jeyam Ravi is truly “Thiyaga sigaram” for even though he is the titular character, his entire screen presence would’ve hardly come to about 15 minutes. The movie majorly runs around the love story between Nandhini and Aditya Karikalan, right from the first frame till the original climax of Karikalan’s death. It is Vikram and Aishwarya Rai’s show out and out. Be it sitting on a restless horse, mocking peria pazhuvettarayar, exuding regality as crown prince, anguish as forlorn lover, he is perfect. He carries the movie all throughout and has a meaty role to merit as well. Aishwarya looks quite old in some scenes and considering how she looked in person during the promotions, wonder major part of CG would’ve gone in making her look young!! Karthik as vandhiyadevan does a neat supporting role. Trisha seems to’ve hit the jackpot with these two movies. She has again got skyrocketed into limelight and looks fresh. The way she carries herself as a princess exudes royalty in every scene. Her micro small romantic interlude with Karthi in the “aga naga” song, which was only as long as how they had cut for the trailers and teaser, is another highlight in the movie.
I found the movie to be quite engaging as a stand-alone movie, but not as an adaptation of the book. In fact, the second part was bit better than first and as a binge watch on OTT, both the movies together would make a decent watch. But the director has not done justice to the book, having tried his hand to the extent possible. But I doubt if anyone could’ve come up with a better screenplay. Definitely it could’ve been more grander, which people would anyway forget first about the movie. It is a budget version of a royal story that was a blockbuster in the literary domain. For a book whose sales still drive many a book fairs, Mani Ratnam has justified the story to his best of abilities.
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