'Weapon' Movie Review: A Messy Superhero Movie That's More Like a Fantasy Game with Action Figures

Films often tend to become the product of filmmakers stuck in echo chambers, refusing to look beyond their own fascinations and perspectives. Guhan Senniappan's superhero film Armed is the last testimony. Despite all the hullabaloo behind Marvel and DC's poor showing over the past five years; despite the way some Hollywood productions have managed to deal with growing superhero fatigue; despite previous attempts in Tamil cinema that taught us the dangers of not anchoring the story in the setting; and even with an Indian title like Minnal Murali by breaking the formulas, we have Armeda two-hour showreel of superhero tropes made to dust that feels more like a child's fantasy story with action figures.

From start to finish, the film lacks fluidity, but just the first 30 minutes should tell you how mundane the ideas are and how complicated the screenwriting can become. In Armedsuperpowers come from a superhero serum (similar to that of Captain America) which was stolen from the Nazis by an Indian soldier during Netaji Subhash Chandrabose's meeting with Hitler in 1942. When the Swastika Brigade comes to India to retrieve their most prized possession, the soldier injects it into his son, Mithran, who grows up to become a superhuman (Sathyaraj) with superhuman strength, telekinesis and telepathy.

But in the grand scheme of things in the world of Armed, Mithran is just a cog in the wheel. In the present day, an explosion at a neutrino power plant unravels many interconnected subplots, one no better than the other and with characters as shallow as possible. We have Agni (Vasanth Ravi), a YouTuber who is chasing superheroes to use them for ecological preservation. Then there's the Black Society 9, a Hydra-like organization that controls the Indian economy, led by Dev Krishnav aka DK (Rajiv Menon); he's a Lex Luthor figure with the intellect of Kingpin, who uses children to illegally test his limb regeneration serum taken from lizards (the speed at which these limbs grow would put Marvel characters Deadpool and Lizard to shame) . Oh, did I mention a muscular assassin named Solomon who is blackmailed into going on his final mission?

A motley crew of assassins, the concept of “Kundalini energy”, the aura that humans apparently possess, glowing bee-like flying devices, and a Cyborg-esque also lead to a sequel. Phew!

And none of these characters or ideas manage to fit into this mess. Even veteran actor Sathyaraj gets the low end of the deal. Having a superpower that requires minimal action ensures that Sathyaraj, 69, looks as formidable as that Logan-meets-Professor 'plot. If there was any opportunity for emotional investment in the story, it was in the pathos that birthed it all – how Mithran grew up – but the use of shoddy AI-generated image slideshows adds a certain plasticity.

However, even if all this testifies to a poorly written script, what makes watching the film a more trying exercise is its editing, its conception of the scenes and its direction. In a pivotal scene, a child crossing a road is saved by a “mysterious figure” from a recklessly driven truck; in the plot, it is intended to give rise to crucial surveillance footage showing superhumans. If the scene instantly reminds you of Christopher Reeve's Superman or Sam Raimi's Spiderman, you know how the fundamental idea of ​​superheroes originated in pop culture. And just the writing, execution and editing of that scene – and the way the surveillance footage is shot – should tell you that while Guhan may be a fan of superhero cinema, the filmmaker in him, wanting to create superhero content, must take a step forward. get out of your filter bubble and explore. So far, despite using everything it has in its arsenal, the film only ends with an unforgettable misfire.

The weapon is currently in theaters