Kanguva Movie Review : ts ambition is sky-high. Kanguva tries to derive power from the elements (air, water and fire), is an ambitious merger of two timelines that are a thousand years apart, and showcases the immense magnetism of lead actor Suriya. There is nothing wrong in this, but if the writing and treatment were a little more organised and coherent, the building blocks could have come together effectively.
Kanguva Movie Review: A Star’s Charisma Can’t Save This Fantasy Epic from Its Slow, Disorganized Start
The star of the show delivers everything that is expected of him, but no matter how much this fantasy epic tries to rely on the actor’s charisma, the thrills of the warriors of old stories and cinematographer Vetri Palanisamy’s sweeping visuals, Kanguva hardly manages to stay afloat.
This Tamil language film, written and directed by Siva, has such a boring and unorganized first 30 minutes that I would hardly have seen anything like this in half an hour of any other movie. The dialogues seem like a formality, the delivery pitch is very irritating, the acting is a little too much and the jokes are quite weak.
This part in the story just gives a quick overview of three bounty hunters who help the police to catch law-breakers. One of them is killed on a boat in Goa, and then Francis Theodore (Suriya) and his chatterbox and idiot partner Colt 95 (Yogi Babu) try to hide.
The entire beginning of the film is not special and we are not told much about the characters screaming on the screen. The one who screams the most is Angela (Disha Patani), who from being Francis’ girlfriend has become his rival and money earner.
The only thing that is understood in the film is that Francis has some strange connection with a runaway boy, who had sex with the cells of his brain in a Russian biomedical lab.
The role of Colt 95 is only to add comedy and Angela is there because the film needs some useless romance and drama. But none of them is of any use.
The tone is set from the opening scenes, and as the film takes us to the past – around 1070 AD – a slight improvement in visuals and intensity is seen. This is the story of people from five different worlds, who speak the same language but are quite different from each other and represent different things.
The hero here is Kanguva (Suriya), who is the prince and chief warrior of Perumachi island. The Perumanathan people are worshippers of fire and their island is lush green, for which they are ready to die. But the hero has no plan to die in his mind.
25,000 Roman soldiers want to capture this island so that they can train their soldiers. When everything is about to end, the Romans and other enemies attack the Arathi island – which is ruled by Uthiran (Bobby Deol) – then Kanguva saves his people from difficulties.
Kanguva does not need anyone’s help, he is a force of nature in himself. Once he sets his goal, nothing can stand in his way. He compares you to the trees in the jungle that don’t move in the wind, and the river that crosses the biggest of rocks.
In the hero’s entry scene, a god-like voiceover introduces him, and the background songs express his inner thoughts. But there is unnecessary loud music in it, which dilutes the story and seems like an unnecessary distraction.
The sound design and characterization of the film could have been worked on more. The people on the screen have not been given a chance to explore themselves fully, not even Kanguva.
Suriya has put a lot of energy into his character, but the script focuses on basic ideas. A missed opportunity in the film is that the ‘maternal’ nurturing side shown in the hero when he helps an orphaned child does not develop. The aspect of Kanguva that protects and nurtures (by killing a crocodile with bare hands) also gets lost in cliches.
This film is not made to do something different, it is trying to be a Tamil Baahubali and KGF, and here it fails. The concept of seamlessly blending the past and present of the story has not been fully explored.
Most of the film is set in the past, which is perhaps fine. The present portions try to add some emotional moments along with science fiction and action, but there is very little consistency in them.
The climax switches between the 11th century and 2024, in both the times the hero is trying to defeat his enemy. But, the villain of the past seems to be a boring caricature, who is not a real threat to the hero.
Bobby Deol is on screen for limited time in his Tamil debut but there are so many things happening in the film that even he is vying for screen space and attention.
Suriya is in dual roles and his ancient avatar looks better than the modern one. This film too feels like two different films in which the past has more weight than the present.
Kanguva is a visual spectacle and is further enhanced by Suriya’s screen presence. If the script had some more depth apart from sensory and visceral, this film would have deserved a sequel.
Kanguva has given a lot of hints for his follow-up. Should we get excited? In the last moments of the film, someone says, “We are moving towards a great future.” Is it true? If the writing is in the same old style, then maybe not.
