Rajinikanth starrer 2.0 releases today and it won’t be an understatement to say that the entire country has been waiting for the marvel to unfold on the silver screen. 2.0 continues the journey of Chitti from the film Enthiran but this time he is challenged by a villain played by Akshay Kumar. 2.0 is said to be a spiritual successor of Enthiran. Akshay Kumar’s look in the Shankar film has intrigued the audience ever since the teaser dropped. With the trailer, fans got curious about the unique storyline.
Dr. Waseegaran has a new robot in Nila (Amy Jackson) and she’s breathtakingly beautiful to start with. Waseegaran wants Chitti back but because of back-door politics, this becomes a tough task. Chitti comes back to fight Pakshi Raja (Akshay Kumar) and no my friends that’s not a spoiler. The entire story revolves around this entertaining face-off. But what makes it different is the cause because of which this delightful chaos is created on screen.
S. Shankar’s story revolves around his magnanimous vision which never goes out of sight from the first second till the last. Everything happening on screen is lo larger than life, along with keeping you intrigued, it keeps you surprising every moment. Eight years is a long time in the life of a movie star. But for Rajnikanth, any hiatus can only be a flash.2.0, director and co-screenwriter Shankar's follow-up to 2010's Enthiran (Robot in Hindi), has materialised after the Tamil cinema supernova has used the long break to appear in four films (Kochadaiiyaan, Lingaa, Kabali, and Kaala). It has been in the works longer than it took Dr. Vaseegaran to conjure up Chitti the thinking robot. The film and its star show clear signs of wear and tear. For Rajnikanth fans, however, this shouldn't be more than a minor irritant.
With Akshay Kumar, in his first-ever southern foray, exuding both star power and emotive energy in the second half of the film in the guise of an ageing ornithologist livid at the fast depleting bird numbers and then as a vengeance seeker for the avian deaths, 2.0 would have been regarded as an improved, stronger version of its predecessor had the plot been a tad more convincing. Amy Jackson as the super-efficient robot who is at the beck and all of her master is aptly mechanical but does just enough not to be swamped out of this sci-fi action film designed primarily for Rajnikanth's larger-than-life, crowd-pleasing screen persona.
Despite that tedious climax, 2.0 is a blast. It could have been a smarter film, but it is a mostly fun Rajinikanth ride, with solid 3D and great Atmos sound — so good is the mastering that at one point when Kumar sets many a phone ringing, I hissed at the person next to me in the theatre. Shankar sticks admirably to the plot and never slows down, with no time for melodrama or song sequences, despite a protracted Akshay Kumar flashback. Kumar has fun snarling and cawing, but a Rajini film is only about one man.