Tik Tik Tik Tamil Movie
When it was announced that Kollywood is gearing up to witness its first "space film", I was immersed in mixed emotions. The first thing that came to my mind was the innumerable Hollywood flicks that we have watched since our childhood days. The second one was the parallels our subconscious tend to draw inadvertently. Merely as an attempt, "Tik Tik Tik" has to be lauded for the director's audacity. But, does it hold enough to make for an engaging watch?
"Tik Tik Tik" employs the tried and tested plot structure of a "group saving the world" or Tamil Nadu in this case. Herein it's literal! They have to stop an asteroid from colliding with the earth. Well, how do they do it? By blasting it with a 200-ton nuclear missile that belongs to.... I shouldn't say that because the censors have muted whenever someone tries to say the name of the country. To justify the role of an army officer from that "country", all we get is someone who resembles a neighbourhood security guy!!
Among the many issues of "Tik Tik Tik", the major one was the screenplay and the characterization. The characters whom we could possibly connect were that of Arjunan's and Thilak's. Others in the movie were like bullet points taken from a powerpoint presentation. The exception could be the bonding between Jayam Ravi and his son thanks to "Kurumba" that had a brilliant composition from Imman, an emotionally binding lyrics from Karky and a soulful rendition from Sid Sriram.
The movie needn't have narrowed its focus in terms of narrative. There could have been much livelier moments without cliches that could have worked. For e.g. It was quite a task to accept Jayam Ravi as the kind of escape artist that the director wanted us to believe. That's because, barring the climax deceit of "covering up" the missile in the opponent's own backyard, there were hardly any "wow" moments that held our attention.
Another blunder was the role of Nivetha and Vincent as trained space scientists! They couldn't have even possibly passed on the roles of IT project managers. A role couldn't be sold solely with looks, one ought to speak the "language" associated with it and for that, the screenplay and dialogues have to be written with strict sensibilities.
On top of all this, there was an evil subplot with a lame revelation of the "bad guy". Director Shakti Soundar Rajan could have done better pre-production and spent more time sketching an engaging narrative. The graphics and special effects sequences along with the plot, though borrowed from past Hollywood hits like Armageddon and Gravity, seemed to work in their own capacity, thereby satiating the "hero" moments for the film.
"Tik Tik Tik" had its heart in its right place, but the screenplay and execution yearned for originality. Shakti Soundar Rajan has perhaps taken a bite that he couldn't possibly swallow and has made a vile mess of puking it out like the characters shown in the movie during the space simulation training sequence!!
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