Superhero subjects are not new to Kollywood. What comes to my mind immediately are films like Enthiran, Mugamoodi, and the recently released Veeran (which surprisingly was a decent one-time watch in OTT). There have been films that had semi-super-hero (who don't have any miracle powers) concepts too like Velayudham, Hero, kanthasamy, Anniyan. While few of these films succeeded, the rest were flops mostly because people could not relate to the character or because of poor writing. Recently, the film Minnal Murali in Malayalam has set the bar in creating Indianized next-door superhero characters.
For such films to succeed, it has to tick most boxes like a good storyline, justify the superpowers with some logic, a strong reason to use these powers (for the public), technical aspects such as CG works, character costume, combined with good action, comedy, and sentiments... it is a long list. Choosing this genre is always a challenge as well since audiences start comparing it with Hollywood superhero films. However, director Madonne Ashwin (Mandela fame) has tried to put together something unique and at the same time, thought-provoking in Maaveeran. But does this tick all boxes?
Maaveeran falls under the semi Super-hero subject. The films revolved around the issues faced by a set of people who are evacuated from the slums and migrated to a high-rise housing board society given by the government. However, they notice several flaws in the construction. The protagonist Sathya's (Sivakarthikeyan) family is also affected by this. Sathya being a coward by nature, prefer not to get into any trouble. He just wants a simple trouble-free life for himself and his family. He manages to get a job in a printing press, with his comic strip based on a Super Hero character "Maaveeran". After some tragic events, he starts to hear the voice of his comic hero "Maaveeran" (dubbed by Vijay Sethupathi), which gives him the strength to deal with the bad elements.
Sivakarthikeyan delivers in all areas this time and his body language and expressions have improved (rather matured) drastically from his earlier films. This is probably his career best and we can tell with confidence that he has jumped into the third league of actors in Kollywood like Dhanush, Simbhu, Jeyam Ravi etc... The erstwhile actor Saritha is a great addition to the cast and she delivers an outstanding performance and adds freshness to the scenes. Yogi Babu delivers this time and is a scream in some comedy sequences. The other actors like Aditi Shankar, Myyskin, and Sunil do their best. The character of Sunil was written well but I wished he turned out to be the real villain in the end!
The storyline is old as ages but the treatment and the concept of the superhero differs here. They have used this to add many comedy scenes into the narration which is a big positive. Its these scenes which make the movie a decent watch. The climax portions were very cliché and could have been different. The complete film is set up in one of the housing board colonies. It is heartening to see scripts that do not demand huge production costs. But on the flip side, you feel the production value is not good enough for a superhero film. The background score is decent, however, it does not elevate the sequences. I couldn't resist thinking about what Anirudh could have done to this film. The cinematography is good and some shots were above-notch. The CG work could have been better in the climax sequences.
Inspite of these shortfalls, Maaveeran will not disappoint you as a movie experience. It's a clean film and the comedy scenes will keep you engaged largely. The crowd for the film was crazy (Sathyam main screen, Chennai) with family and kids as well, and that too for a first-day show. I Guess Maaveeran will end up as the highest-grosser for the actor and he is here to stay.
Rating - 3.25/5
