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Murugadoss and Surya rewrote Box Office history when they made Ghajini. That movie made Surya a popular actor all over India overnight. So when this team comes together again to create a big budgeted action extravaganza, expectations will naturally be sky high. Add Shruti Haasan’s glamour to that equation and you have one potent combo. The film released all across Andhra Pradesh today in a big way. Let us see how the movie fares.

Story : The story revolves around Aravind (Surya), who is a circus artist, and Subha (Sruthi Hassan),a talented science student. Aravind is madly in love with Shubha and for a while it appears as if Shubha reciprocates, but Aravind soon realises that he is just being used in a high stakes political game. Aravind is connected to an ancient king of India who travels all the way to China and achieves a legendary status there because of his immense knowledge in the fields of Martial Arts, medicine and psychology.

The lives of Aravind and Shuba are tied to Chinese agent Dong Lee (Johny Nguyen) who is hell bent on unleashing ‘Operation Red’ to destabilize India. The research of Shuba allows Aravind to inherit the legendary qualities and powers of the ancient King Bodhi.What is Operation Red? What are its true objectives? And will Aravind be able to Dong Lee?

Whats Good : The first 20-25 minutes where Surya is introduced as a legendary ancient King and the scenes in China are just simply superb. Surya is one actor who can breathe life into any character that is given to him. His body language, physique and histrionics are a treat to watch.

Johny Nguyen is fantastic as Chinese agent Dong Lee. His martial arts prowess and relentless projection of evil are worth watching. Shruti Haasan looks fabulous but as far as histrionics are concerned, she is just okay as the scientist Shubha. The movie deals with some interesting subjects like psychology, hypnotism, DNA sequencing etc. For the urban movie goer, this will be quite nice to watch.

The twists in the story are good and the movie has a very rich feel to it. Some of the action sequences are first rate and will be appreciated well.

Whats Bad : Murugadoss tried to bring in unnecessary commercial elements into a very promising and riveting subject and that is the biggest let down in this movie. The romantic track between Surya and Shruti has not been handled well. Too much screen time was wasted on trying to establish the love story and the character of Aravind as the circus artist. This led to a rush of sorts at the climax where things should have been handled with more detail and care.

Some of the special effects in the second half look silly and it is very surprising to find top notch SFX along with such childish and silly SFX in the same movie. Songs are major irritants. They neither sound nice nor look good. They spoil the flow of the story and will test the patience of the audience.

There are some highly illogical sequences in the second half and that’s very disappointing as the movie could have been so much better without them. A promising scientific story-line has been mercilessly murdered to make way for commercial elements. There is nothing wrong with commercial elements as long as they work. But in this case, they fail big time.

Technical Departments : Cinematography is top notch and must be appreciated. The movie looks brilliant visually. Background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja is okay but the music is a big disappointment. SFX and CGI work is stunning in a few sequences and atrocious in other areas. Editing is average.

Special mention must be made about the action sequences. Again, some of them are top notch and are worthy of applause. On the other hand, a few sequences are unbelievably ridiculous

Verdict : 7th Sense is a movie that could have been brilliant. It has a very nice concept and some powerful performances. But bad screenplay and some needless tinkering with the story-line for the sake of adding a few commercial elements prevent the movie from being truly great. 7th Sense can get quite boring and ridiculous in the second half. The movie has its moments though. The first 20 minutes has spellbinding content. The movie will be a treat for Surya’s fans. For the rest of you, enjoyment will depend on how much of your brain you want to leave back home before going to the theater.

– Mahesh K.S

123Telugu.com Rating : 3/5

Legend: 5 – Flawless

4 – Must Watch

3 – One Time Watch

2 – Wait for the DVD

1 – Stay Away