What’s smarter than your smartphone? Rajinikanth

Chennai is under attack. Every cellphone has flown from hands and vanished into the sky, leaving scientists befuddled. I found one floated theory particularly interesting: what if this is a rival cellular phone company trying to establish itself? Considering the way a certain service provider has busted the kneecaps of the competition with savagely predatory pricing, I wondered if this film’s big baddie was a stand-in for one of India’s megacorps.

No dice. Director Shankar always has well-meaning ideas at the core, but his cinema flirts with relevance instead of committing to it. The 2010 Enthiran (Robot) was Frankenstein by way of artificial intelligence, told in a flimsy manner. But what Shankar cracked there was a way forward for a mythically outsized leading man: Rajinikanth played the mild-mannered scientist Vasigaran, with all the punches and punchlines saved for Chitti the Robot, his superhuman alter-ego.

In the sequel, 2.0, the battle has potential: Rajinikanth versus the phones that give him the power he holds, via memes and ringtones and hashtags. Except that the villain here is a birdbrain: an ornithologist who, angered by the injustice we do to birds with the radiation from our cellphone towers, uses thousands of disembodied cellphones to create an… angry bird.

“Nice DP,” says Chitti, when he comes face to face with the villain, unsubtly named Pakshiraja, and played by Akshay Kumar. It is the right response, for Kumar, despite his vast (and undefined) powers, never feels like a serious threat. Shankar is all about spectacle and India’s first film shot in 3D doesn’t disappoint in that respect. If anything, the director is over-eager and we’re ducking to avoid the many, many objects being hurled at us.

Rajini is in screen-dominating form, though, both as the efficient Vasigaran and as Chitti. Enthiran provided memorable visuals of interlocked Rajinikanths; 2.0 does that in 3D. Shankar provides some clever asides here too, both visual and verbal: a window-washer startled by the giant bird monster, or the act of queuing to buy cellphones described as a pilgrimage.

This balance is lost in the unending climax. In one sequence that you will never be able to un-see, Rajini enters Kumar. Elsewhere, other things meld together into bigger, more unwieldy things. Shankar’s perpetual game of Lego turns even Chitti magnetic, covering him in all sorts of metallic garbage like a Subodh Gupta installation.

Also, the hero threatens the villain by holding pigeons hostage and threatening to snap their necks. Go figure.

Actually, don’t. Despite that tedious climax, 2.0 is a blast. It could have been a smarter film, but this is a fun Rajinikanth ride, with solid 3D and great Atmos sound. Shankar sticks to the plot, never slows down, with no time for melodrama or song sequences. Kumar has fun snarling and cawing and Jackson is good in a quirky role. But a Rajini film is only about one man.

Now if only he could stop our calls from dropping.

hree years after Creed revitalised the worn-out Rocky franchise comes a sequel so formulaic, it seems almost inexplicable. Director Steven Caple Jr (taking over from the vastly superior Ryan Coogler) fails to replicate either the vibrancy or excitement of the first outing.

In Creed II, young boxer Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan, reprising his role with comparable charisma) steps back into the ring to face off against a fearsome new foe. The script strives to create a complex emotional dynamic by giving Creed an opponent (Florian Munteanu) who is the son of the prizefighter (Dolph Lundgren) responsible for his father’s death.

Once again, Rocky Balboa — unarguably Sylvester Stallone’s most enduring character — is relegated to the background in the role of the curmudgeonly coach.

The training montage sequences as well as the set piece bouts don’t compare favourably with other fight flicks. Worse, the wall-towall soundtrack is an earsore. In the meaty supporting roles of Creed’s wife and widowed mother respectively, Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad are alternately fierce and understated.

Overall, Creed II doesn’t pack a punch.