Kanguva Review: Suriya & Kollywood's Ganapath

RATING - ⭐ ✨ 1.5/5*

Kanguva Review Movie Talkies:

Siva's Kanguva was planned in 2019 and then got shelved due to the pandemic. I wish they had never gotten back. It would have saved their money and time and our money and time too. In Bollywood, there is a similar case called Ganapath. A big-budget sci-fi action epic, which was stuck in the pandemic, and when it came out in 2023, it felt worse than the pandemic. In short, Kanguva is Kollywood's Ganapath, be it big budget, high ambitions, grand scale action, weakness of storyline, or cringe filmmaking.

Kanguva starts with a ghost-looking granny telling children about "Moon" being the only eyewitness to whatever has happened on earth. What a great philosopher she was! The same moon witnessed the story 14 centuries ago and is witnessing the reincarnation again in 2024. Francis (Suriya) is a bounty hunter, and his ex-girlfriend, Angelina (Disha Patani), is his biggest rival in the market. Both are on track to find a boy who is being chased by an army of a digital monster. During the chase sequence, Francis and the boy feel that there is some connection between them, but it was in the 11th century. Kanguva (Suriya) is a king, leader, and warrior of his tribe living on an island, and soon we have a Roman army trying to capture the island. It's not possible when Kanguva is there, so of course, some local politics and revenge theories are used to explore the ancient world. Kanguva has killed the boy's father and has adopted him, but that forces his tribe to send him into exile. Will they be able to beat Romans and Udhiran's (Bobby Deol) armies now?

In the first 15 minutes, Kanguva gives you a feel of watching a B-grade South film. The Hindi dubbing makes it even more horrible for us. Cringe jokes, cheap one-liners, misplaced characters, scattered action sequences, and a whole lot of boredom suddenly take us to the past era, and then there is some relief for the next 40 minutes. However, just before the interval point, things get messy again, and you feel like leaving the film halfway and saving your next hour. But if you still insist on watching it, just like I did for the sake of this review, then believe me, that bad first half looks much better. The second half of Kanguva has no head or tail. Kanguva does not want to get killed because he wants to stay alive to save his tribe, but he is ready to die while saving the boy. The same boy couldn't see that he was the one who saved his life from the villager and is having some fake family pride boosted by a fire of revenge. Kanguva alone is enough to beat the entire amry; then why the hell he was silent and waited till they attacked his tribe's woman and people? So many unbaked theories, so much incompleteness, and a pathetic line-up of events make this fantasy epic one of the worst written and presented big-budget films in recent times.

The performance of Suriya was loud, and the case of the acting department closed for me. If the main man's acting talent can't be decent, you can't expect others to do anything good. That helps, though, because whatever you see from Bobby Deol and Disha Patani is impossibly bad. They couldn't even make general faces; forget expressions and dialogue delivery. Disha looks hot in some scenes, but what a huge waste of her beauty when she can't act. It's time she took acting seriously. Bobby is in sleepwalking mode throughout the film. Yogi Babu goes childish again; Natarajan Subramaniam, K. S. Ravikumar, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley, Kovai Sarala, and Mansoor Ali Khan could hardly get over their pathetic prosthetic setup, and Karthi was looking like a drunkard and drug addict in that cameo.

Kanguva may be called an example of how not to waste Rs. 250-300 crore with such technical support. The 3D effects looked great when I saw the teaser and trailer, but sadly today I had to see it in 2D. The only best thing about the film was not in fate; you can't feel the pain, bro. The sound design is unnecessarily loud and annoying; the cinematography is decent, though, and the production design was lavish. The light setup didn't make much sense as we see frames changing colors within the same atmosphere, which is neither logical nor sensible. Dear Siva Sir, you have done a great injustice to Suriya's acting talent and the big budget provided by the producers. Imagine having the guy who is coming after Soorarai Potrru and Jai Bhim waste his acting finesse like this! How can someone approve this? How did Suriya or Bobby accept this? How did makers dare to go ahead and spend so much time and money on this script? There are no answers to these questions because the making of Kanguva is a big question in itself. Sorry, this is a WHOLE LOTTA CRAP to handle!

Also read : Vijay 69 Review: Absurd & funny tale of passion at 69