Weapons Movie Review: An Inconsistent, Blurry Misfire

Hollywood superhero movies have proliferated over the past decade, and when we see one we like, we invariably say, “If they can do it, why can't we?” Maybe the new Tamil movie, Armed, was born from such a question. Perhaps that's why there are traces of Magneto and Superman in the characters. Perhaps this is why Hitler and his swastika symbol feature prominently. I thought I saw traces of Bucky in one character's appearance, of Iron Man in the way another character lands and poses. This film, in fact, seems too eager to include all the models of Hollywood superhero cinema. There are laboratory experiments. There is an evil, powerful elite that controls everything. There is a group of assassins (or as the film repeatedly calls them, Uhssawsins). The idea of ​​a super-soldier. There is the idea of ​​cloning. Someone else cares about conservation of ecology. Someone else is talking about genetic modification. And all these concepts randomly mix together in this two-hour film. If you're wondering how the film can do justice to the exploration of so many ideas, the answer is simple: it doesn't.

The movie is so hard to follow. We're constantly moving from one idea to another, from one masked group to another, even as the background music tries its hardest to convince us that something great is happening. Here is NSG capturing someone. Oh wait, here's a group of YouTubers and a song about it. No, wait, let's look at an evil businessman. Wait, here comes a group of evil elites who control everything. Or maybe you'd rather take on a group of assassins instead? I could go on and on, as the film does, as it inconsistently presents us with all of these ideas and struggles to bring them together into a meaningful and entertaining whole. All the awkward, borderline stupid conversations in the film don't help. A woman whose life was saved by a superhero character bizarrely decides after the interval that he is a monster and needs another character to point out the obvious that he actually saved her life of those who wanted to kill her. A man recruiting a group of assassins tells them that his data on them shows that they have achieved 100% of their goals. “I hired over 30 groups of assassins who were all killed,” he warms up. “But I choose you because you target the enemy's weakness.” Um, unlike what? Even some business conversations are more engaging.

Director: Guhan Senniappan

Actors: Sathyaraj, Vasanth Ravi, Tanya Hope, Rajiv Menon

Armed, from time to time, also looks like a hodgepodge of advertising sequences. Here are some excerpts from the Visit Theni campaign. Here are some excerpts from the Elephants Are Our Friends campaign. In any case, the whole elephant-Mithran (Sathyaraj) connection seems established in a song as an anxious afterthought, as if someone suddenly realized that there was nothing up to that point in the second half that makes us care about a character. The film also constantly telegraphs its developments in advance. You see an elephant suddenly appear; you know what's coming. You see Vinothini Vaidyanathan’s character with a child; you know what's coming. Even Vasanth Ravi's big twist doesn't amount to much, and his sudden change of heart regarding one character seems downright absurd. Amidst all this, we also get exposition blocks, in which a narrator tells you the story with cool graphic visuals. At one point I thought this looked a lot more interesting than all the live action sequences.

The visual effects are pretty good, and if there's any merit to the film, it's that some ambitious action ideas are executed in a way that doesn't leave us choking on laughter. I thought the block of Sathyaraj action before the interval was pretty decent, although all the slow motion meant the one-sided fight seemed to go on and on. In fact, on a narrative level, the only idea that I cared about at all was for Sathyaraj's Mithran to be a bit of a Hancock figure. A solitary, super-powered individual who minds his own business. A better film would have devoted more time to him and allowed us to truly understand his pain and loneliness.

If they can do it, why can't we? The answer to this question is usually a rant about our small budgets and lack of visual effects know-how. In the case of Armed, the ambition is obvious, the VFX aren't that bad, but the storytelling is as weak as the film's villains. Somewhere in the first half, Vasanth Ravi's character talks about superheroes and a woman interrupts him: “Look, don't watch Hollywood films. » I would never go so far as to suggest it, but next time, while we pay attention to all the tropes and common ideas in the superhero movie template, maybe we'll also pay attention to these small, honest moments of vulnerability that endear us. characters for us. This is why after End of GameWhen thinking about Tony Stark, we might forget all the fights he fought, we might forget all the weapons he used, but we will never forget the fact that he told his daughter: “I 'likes 3000'.