Rajnikanth is touted to be able to do it all- count to infinity, can find corners in circles, made the dinosaurs extinct, has played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun and won etc. But one thing he clearly cannot do is to ensure that every film of his entertains. Kochadaiiyaan may boast of all that motion capture technology, but put side by side Hollywood exploits such as Tin Tin, it comes off as an amateurish, cartoonish effort.
The story is a standard revenge drama- in the vein of Dharam Veer, and a million Chinese martial art epics. Kochadaiiyaan is a legendary warrior in the kingdom of Kottaipatinam. He is a man of ethics, but his enemies are not. His military prowess and burgeoning popularity attracts the jealousy of the king, Rishikogadan (Nasser). In a skirmish with the rival kingdom of Kalingpuri, Kochadaiiyaan loses his army as he chooses to ensure they live rather than be massacred. The king of Kottaipatinam uses this as a reason to eradicate someone from who he feels threatened.
Kochadaiiyaan's son, Rana takes up his father's unfinished mission. He goes to Kalingpuri, trains there and becomes the army general. He then tricks the king of Kalingpuri- Mahendra Raj (Jackie Shroff), to let him make an army out of the people of Kottaipatnam who he had earlier enslaved, and then gets them home on the pretex of war. There is a double love story lined up post this featuring an "enhanced" Deepika, while Rishikogadan and Mahendra Raj must meet their bloody end.
Rajnikanth is virtually in every frame of the film, and as usual he oozes style and confidence. While the movie is decently paced, every scene is either a song or a fight sequence. The result of the motion capture technology is abysmal. The reason for doing motion capture is to impart real feel to animated characters. In Kochadaiiyaan, the effect is opposite- there is no real emotion in the facial shots of the characters. Had it been a live action film, it might have looked good. But today's audience used to Avatar and its ilk, this mediocre effort simply does not cut the cake. Even Pogo features better animation!
This expensive experiment to immortalize Rajnikanth might be good enough for die hard fans, but still cannot make up for its complete lack of connect, and its technical shortcomings. The last scene indicated a sequel- hope that is done better. 5/10
