Tik Tik Tik Movie Review
Production: Hitesh Jabak, Nemichand Jhabak Cast: Aaron Aziz, Arjunan, Jayam Ravi, Jayaprakash, Nivetha Pethuraj, Ramesh Thilak, Vincent Ashokan Direction: Shakti Soundar Rajan Screenplay: Shakti Soundar Rajan Story: Shakti Soundar Rajan Music: D Imman Background score: D Imman
Jayam Ravi’s Tik Tik Tik finally hit the big screens today. The movie has a lot riding on it, thanks to the fact that this is the first space thriller from south India. Let us see whether this path-breaking attempt impresses the audience or not.
Story:
An unidentified asteroid hits earth’s surface and causes panic in the city of Vizag. The Indian Air Force comes to know that another asteroid, which is much bigger in size is on course to hit the earth and wipe out a few states in South India. Seeing this, the Indian army employs Vasu(Jayam Ravi) and his gang to carry out a mission to deteriorate the asteroid and save planet earth.
They recruit Vasu (Jayam Ravi), a trained magician and a con escape artist who is serving jail term along with his friends Venkat (Ramesh Thilak) and Appu (Arjunan). The five member team are sent by DSD to get the missile and save Chennai from total destruction. However just prior to their launch, Vasu gets a call from a mystery man who says he has kidnapped his son Ravi ( Aarav Ravi), and demands the missile be handed over to him as ransom if he wants to see his son alive. Obviously it is an insider and somebody in DSD is playing dirty; will the team in space get the missile and save Chennai?
What works for the film is a new theme and genre, and decent special effects and graphics, when you consider the shoe-string budget of the film. The CG work is not great but sufficient to make it look cool and believable. The humour factor provided by Arjunan and Ramesh Thilak along with Ravi makes it enjoyable along with terrific background score by D Imman. The real life father-son combination of Jayam Ravi and Aarav Ravi on screen adds to the sentimentalilty especially in the picturisation of the hit number ‘Kurumba’. There is absolutely no romance in the film, which works to its advantage.
On the flipside, the film lacks a strong villain, which dilutes the impact of the climax. Another drawback is that the villain character is revealed at almost the half way point, which makes the film predictable towards the end. The censors have muted the name of the country from which the team “steals” the missile (this part lacks logic and is more about cinematic license), as we are now on “excellent terms with that country”. Go figure.
The face of Tamil cinema has been changing drastically over the years and so are the expectations of the viewers. People are exposed to a lot of international films, so they expect Tamil movies to be made on a bigger canvas.
Tamil films have been providing a bunch of options before the audiences to choose – from realistic melodramas to mind throttling action to terrifying horror flicks, but if there is one genre our filmmakers haven’t tested their hands on yet, that would be a SPACE film. Tik Tik Tik might have some flaws but it will always be known for its brave attempt to be India’s first space movie.
What works very well is the special-effects – a real attention grabber for its budget. Tik Tik Tik starts off with an explosion, a small 8M asteroid hits Chennai which gives the government a lead about a bigger asteroid that is waiting to destroy nearly half the population of Tamil Nadu in 7 days. And to stop this disaster, the DSD appoints a special team to steal a powerful missile from a high-security vault.
So the plan is to steal the missile and blast the asteroid, If all goes well, the asteroid will crack into two pieces that will brush harmlessly past the earth. Needless to say, all does not go well. The team faces plenty of obstacles in the process and what happens, in the end, is all Tik Tik Tik is about.
Jayam Ravi plays a larger-than-life character with plenty of heroic moments. While some moments have clicked with the audience, some did seem forced. His expertise as a con artist and a bunch of other men and a female army official is called into service by the Indian government when DSD wakes up to find a humongous asteroid less than half a month away from a rendezvous with Tamil Nadu’s atmosphere.
The plot doesn’t have realism going for it, but it does have some great entertainment and special effects. A perfect blend of science fiction and Indian typical masala elements. There is a decent mix of humor and sentiment in this adventure thriller.
Jayam Ravi does an impeccable job carrying the film on his shoulders. Ramesh Thilak and Arjunan try to provide the occasional comic relief while Nivetha Pethuraj lightens up the screen with her glam quotient in the initial phase of the film and she fulfilled the requirements of the character with an apt performance.
Director Sakthi Soundarajan has concentrated on the commercial aspects more than the drama of the people who are sweating it out to save humanity, which might well be in respect to the box office prospects of the film but however, one feels it doesn’t let you get attached to the characters much.
Jayam Ravi and his son Aarav’s on-screen chemistry was heartwarming to see in the Kurumba song. Both the songs from Imman were good and the BGM worked decently well. Art director SS Moorthy deserves a special mention to recreate a space set in Chennai. Cinematographer S Venkatesh took a challenging task and made it look easy, the visuals were impressive.
Tik Tik Tik is a new age space thriller which provides a different experience to the viewers. Good graphics, interesting setup, and strong performances are major advantages. However, the movie has its own share of flaws and that may obstruct the flow for a section of the audience who are not used to such subjects. If you are a big fan of space thrillers, give this movie a try and witness the first-of-a-kind attempt in Indian cinema which ends up as a decent watch this weekend.
