Score: One in a thousand...

It is tough to write about this movie without being sardonic. Ayirathil Oruvan lives up to its name - on a scale of 1000, it would receive a grand score of 1, and that is because of unintentional comedy.

The movie is a ridiculous waste of time and money. The gore content is terrible, so too is the Apocalypto-style costume design. No motives are provided, no explanations either. The movie simultaneously tries to pander to B/C audiences and be intelligent, alluding to legends and doing away with intelligible dialogue for a good 20 mins in the second half. It also tries to simultaneously explore and master a genre too large for either. Guilty too it is of showing a character simultaneously heroic and pusillanimous, with no shades in between. In short, the movie suffers from an identity crisis - it is neither the unformed vision of a master-director, nor the structured product of a commercial house. From a cast that boasts the wildly talented Karthi and Andrea, and the oh-so-sexy Reemma, apart from Selvaraghavan, known for his engrossing (albeit controversial) movies, the movie is not only terrible, but a mockery of their talents.

The plus points - exchanges between the lead trio are enjoyable. One feels that had the movie taken the course of a survival flick, with the trio weathering a hostile forest and a jungle tribe while fighting and understanding themselves, the end result would have been positively terrific. Reemma is admittedly gorgeous, though in my honest opinion Andrea beats her hands down without trying. For example, the part in 'En maela aasai dhaan' where she makes to remove her top was easily THE most smouldering part of the movie, including the numerous fires and concomitant killings.

The background music, though a bit loud at times, was well rendered. Re-Recording was par excellence, and the music in general was enjoyable. The pseudo-carnatic bit with the King and the Intruder was enjoyable to this untrained ear, and "En Maela" was frankly groovy. All other songs were passe, and where the hell was "Maalai Naeram"?

Acting was good through the movie, and camera work was amazing also. Graphics were a bit childish, though a laudable attempt.

AO is an example of how a film that is stretched out too long can sometimes take a direction completely opposite what a director may have intended. It is also testimony that however talented your cast and crew, the bottom line is the script - if you do not invest time in fleshing out a script for a movie of this magnitude, chaos will result. It saddens me that the first major foray by Kollywood into this genre tells you what exactly not to do.

Highlights:

1. Karthi's acting
2. Andrea's stunning (albeit completely underutilized) mix of acting and looks
3. Reemma's Tomb Raider outfit
4. BGM
5. Scale of production

You wouldn't want to miss:

1. The amazingly talented army that uses wooden shields with holes, and runs towards barbarians who specialize at melee combat.
   
2. Reemma's hilarious shoot-and-move scene with the snakes
3. Lactating blood *yuk*
4. The threesome in the cave!
5. The small bit, right at the end, that says, wait for it, "To be continued"

To be blunt: The only reason the movie was finished as it was was because there was no way to ties up all the loose ends, provide motive and historical perspective to this without spending another 25 crores, and 2 hours. The director lost the plot somewhere around the song "Un maela aasai". After that, it was all downhill. There was one complete comedy of a song, which should have been a 'music promo' for the movie. The graphics to me were under-par, but the scale of application makes this understandable. Who the hell is that archaeologist and how the hell did he get past everything?

Final word: Avoid. At all costs. Maybe if the world was ending and you wanted to badly see a Tamil movie before you died, you could watch this. Even then, I would recommend Vaettaikaaran.