Product placement finally hit tamil movies fullblast. Movie is preceded by ad for Airtel, connecting two vague things like "chandramukhi" and Airtel phones. The host beams happily into the camera and proclaims herself happy as she has Airtel. "And now for the Superstar movie--Chandramukhi!!" she trills while the movie begins. Bunch of engineers in construction van are being attacked by "villains" [notice the quotes. Indicates am clueless of the who,why,what,where of the villains. They pop out for a significant part of the movie]. While obese Hero "prabhu" tries to rush to the rescue, a henchman is smacked in the face by a pair of cheap keds. Camera moves from sole of shoe [size 8] to face of the superstar. Commendable make-up, the senior citizen almost resembles the 45 year old sensation. Background music goes wild, as does the theatre. A guy stands up to throw torn paper at the screen, while self is hoping that the theatre-guys screen the entry shot for a small aarti [its true. Have been there]. Doesnt happen, but shrill whistles continue unabated--screenshot seems frozen for such a moment so that nobody misses a single dialog. After a lengthy minute, the noise dies down. Now Rajnikanth proceeds to single-handedly destroy any memory of "The Matrix". Mr.Anderson is down on his knees, begging for mercy as the superstar flies, freezes and swims in the wind to bash up goons. The spectacular fight ends with the superstar jumping up in the air, freezing, and dusting shoes before landing expertly upright. Hallelujah!
Guy on left takes offense to laughter at fight-"If its crouching tiger hidden dragon everyone will see but not superstar" he sulks. Mom smiles kindly at hurt fan, and looks at me as if to say " Freeze that thought on copycat directors". This, by the way, is fan-dom at its best. There is no sense or logic in the movie--the dialogs, obviously patronizing ["I have heard ravana has 10 brains in 10 heads but superstar has 10 brains in one head"]. Its obscene watching Rajnikanth prace around his grandaughter aged actress. Nobody is allowed decent screen-time and its a VERY souped up version of a perceivably classy mallu movie. But the theatre is elated, logic to hell.After atleast a decade I came out of the theatre with smiling, laughing audience--no matter what the reason, they enjoyed themselves. The incredulousness of the movie,the arguably unfunny comedy--it all bundled into one fun session for the crowd, and hey, one cant argue with a crowd-pleaser. A Rajni movie is guilty-pleasure--you know there is nothing intellectual in there, but you are drawn to it,even if to mock its stupidity as it provides for what isnt very common these days, "entertainment in the true sense".
But how was the movie you ask? hmmm.
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