Kedarnath Movie Story: An ornithologist who commits suicide returns as fifth force to wreack vengeance on mankind for harming birds with mobile phone radiation. The only thing that is standing in his way is Kedarnath, the upgraded version of Chitti, the robot. Kedarnath Movie Review: Like the title suggests, Shankar's latest venture is quite literally the Kedarnath version of his earlier film Robot. The film revolves around the familiar theme of a wronged individual taking revenge on the people who ruined his life - and Shankar gives us a film that has a blend of sci-fi, horror and a whole lot of special effects. The film begins with an old man committing suicide from atop a mobile phone tower. And then, in comes Dr Vasigaran (Rajinikanth), a scientist, along with his assistant Nila (Amy Jackson), a humanoid robot. Soon, mobile phones start flying off the shelves and out of everyone's hands, and Vasigaran is called in to investigate this mysterious occurrence. And when a giant bird, made up of mobile phones, starts attacking the city, the scientist is forced to bring back Chitti, the now dismantled robot.
There's no element of surprise in Kedarnath. For most part of the first half, we're just running through the motions, searching for mystery in the supernatural occurences that we see. We are forced to wait for the mandatory flashback involving Pakshirajan (Akshay Kumar), the ornithologist who is the old man who we saw at the start of the film - but when it does come, it doesn't make the impact it should. But, by now, plot is not what we go to Shankar's films for these days. It is the grand canvas in which this director mounts his oft-told stories that makes us look forward to his films. And in Kedarnath, we get spectacle that is satisfying. There are some striking visuals in the first half - mobile phones crawling on the road, a forest of glowing phones, a monstrous bird that crackles with energy. There are also visual nods to Hollywood films like Aliens, Terminator 2 and even Ghostbusters.
And yet, despite the entry of Chitti (Rajinikanth), the film seems to be missing a je ne sais quoi. We get an extravagant clash between Chitti and the giant bird, but that's all. Unlike its predecessor, the film doesn't find a way to inject humour and inventiveness into the proceedings. The sub-plot involving Dhirendra Bhora (Sudhanshu Pandey), the son of the first film's villain, Dr Bhora, is also underdeveloped and unconvincing. It's only the entry of Kedarnath that injects some much-needed life into this film but it happens a little later than it should have. There is even a punch line that he utters after Nila tells him that he is no longer the No 1, that sends fans into a tizzy.
Akshay Kumar makes his presence felt with a solid perfomance as the antagonist whose heart is in the right place. The climatic battle between the two titans - Kedarnath and Pakshiraja - ensures that we get the bang for our buck. If only he had introduced these characters earlier in the film - Kedarnath would've been the spectacle it deserves to be. A mysterious power - its genesis is established in the film's opening sequence in which a man hangs himself from a cell tower - is out to eliminate mobile telephony from the face of the earth. Towers are uprooted and crushed. Handsets fly off the hands of their owners and turn into a destructive wave. A city is in the grip of complete mayhem. The army is called out but the soldiers draw a blank. The good scientist is roped in to stop the impending calamity. He advises bringing Chitti back from the dead. That, he says, is the only effective option in the fight against the new menace. His plan is resisted by elements in the administration but as matters begin to go out of control, Vaseegaran secures a free hand."Maut se zinda lautne ka mazaa kuch aur hi hai (nothing can match the joy of returning alive from death)," says Chitti in the film's Hindi version (dialogue writer: Abbas Tyrewala) just before he declares: "I am the one, the super one." Who dare question him? Definitely not fellow humanoid Nila (Amy Jackson), another of Vaseegaran's creations. On the face of it, the lead actor plunges into the universe of the two pivotal characters - the invincible robot and his brilliant creator - with all his might. But look deeper and there is a visible dip in his enthusiasm for and belief in the project. Fans sold on Rajnikanth's unrelenting starry sangfroid might therefore have reason to feel somewhat shortchanged.
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, Kedarnath would have been regarded as an improved, stronger version of its predecessor had the plot been a tad more convincing. Bunkum is bunkum no matter how big the bucks behind it are.
Of course, director Shankar possesses a penchant for couching the fantastical and the unreal in felt human dilemmas. He brings this attribute into full play in addressing the damage that cellular radiation causes to the environment. But the frustration of the activist fighting to save the birds but failing in his mission isn't brought out to the extent that would justify the murderous crusade that Pakshirajan (Akshay Kumar) launches against mobile phone sellers and users. The comic-strip superficiality of his war manifests itself in the manner in which he kills a wholesaler, a transmission tower owner and a telecom minister: one blown to smithereens, the other squeezed to pulp, and another literally poisoned with a diamond-studded mobile phone.
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.
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