~PS2- Movie Reviews and BO Thread~ - Page 8

Ponniyen Selvan 1 collected approximately 500 crore. It seems like Ponniyen Selvan 2 is almost at the halfway mark of that. But we Aish fans need to keep supporting her. It seems to have dropped on Tuesday. Although it is still Tuesday in the United States and my parents are watching it. 😆

https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/regional-cinema/story/ponniyin-selvan-2-box-office-collection-day-5-mani-ratnam-film-is-inching-towards-rs-250-crore-globally-2367796-2023-05-03

Alrighty ... let's get this party started shall we.

Welcome to ... duna dun duna dun ... THE REVIEW ZONE!

Your excitement levels:

My Excitement Levels:

LETS DO THIS

Fair warning though -- there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk because I ain't holding back 😆🤣

Technically I kinda will because Ima treat this review exactly like Part 2 of Ponniyan Selvan II. This review will be the exact, 100%, non-tainted, non-flawed, no-gibber-jabber experience when you watch PSII.

Kapoosh?

Kapeesh.

Phew. Let's get to it.

Okay. This is me right now. STILL. It's been two hours since I watched the movie and I'm still like this.


I am STILL dumbfounded, enchanted, over the moon over Part II. And trust me ... it wasn't the plot, it wasn't the fact that I was beginning to understand everyone's names and roles (unlike that colossal eff up in PS 1), it wasn't the fact that they managed to pull off a war scene in like 5 minutes and make it more realistic than Bahubali's hyperfantasy war scene ...

IT

WAS

THIS

GIRL
RIGHT

HERE

Surprised? Me too. Because if you remember Part I of my review from last year, I think I said that I liked Trisha over Aishwarya when it came to acting.


OH BOYYYYYYYY PONNIYIN SELVAN TWO LITERALLY TOOK THAT STATEMENT, B*TCH SLAPPED IT A BILLION TIMES, SHOVED IT INSIDE A ROCKET, SENT IT TO THE NEXT DIMENSION, WHERE IT MET RONALD MCDONALD WHO TOLD IT TO EFF OFF BECAUSE HIS WORDS AFTER WATCHING AISHWARYA IN PS2 was ...




OKAY.OKAY.OKAY.OKAY.OKAY.

I NEED TO PAINT A PICTURE FOR YOU.

This is Aishwarya in PS1:

(ignore Trisha)




...

Got that. Now this is Aishwarya in PS2 (metaphorically).

Everything you love about Aishwarya -- PS2 gave you that. LITERALLY.

You thought she was elegant in PS1 - BOOM. PS2 DOUBLE THAT.

You thought she acted good in PS1 - BOOM PS2 TRIPLED THAT.

You thought she looked amazing in PS1 - BOOM. PS2 DECTUPLED THAT (or however you say 10x)

She crucified my heart and I had to be carried out at the end of the movie by the ushers because I still couldn't get myself over Aishwarya.


That's a lot of words. Let me simplify.

PS2 is an Ash Lover's Paradise and an Ash Hater's Envy.
Aishwarya Rai was the BEST FRIGGIN PART OF THE MOVIE. Seriously. And that's in part because of how important her character was to Part 2. PS1 was not really about Nandini and there wasn't much character development for Nandini. PS2 was literally 3/4 Nandini / Ash. GIRL ROCKED THE SCREEN MOST OF THE TIME.

Maybe it was just me ... but I absolutely DIED when they did closeup shots of Ash. I was screaming so much (internally ... and it would have been external if it was an empty theater - and mind you it almost was except for two random Indian oldies that showed up LATE). I was impressed. She was beauty personified. Her looks were piercing, her dialogue delivery was fierce, her eyes were two little cute daggers that kept stabbing me. Bruh. You don't understand. She checked all those little boxes in my head and made me flutter like a butterfly. I LOVED IT ALL.

That being said ... whenever Ash was sharing the screen with someone (ie it was a wideshot so other people were in the frame), she failed so hard I wanted to cry just so the tears could blur out whatever was on the screen and my neurons don't explode in cringe. Luckily, the film only had a few of those wide shots, but it felt like she was a fish out of water in each of those scenes - sooooo awkward. But I'm very serious when I tell you that there are a ton of closeups. I'm guessing the director realized what I realized and was like "yeahhhhh we're only using closeups of Aishwarya" ... so I imagine.

This might not be the best example (you'll see it when you watch it), but it's something like this:
Ash sharing the screen:

Ash Close Up:

That's right .. shhhhhhhhhhhh.

She absolutely destroys the screen when she's alone.

Okay that's enough Aishwarya-ing for now.

On to the actual movie review.


For those of you that haven't watched it yet, and are worried that you need to rewatch 3 hours of PS1 to refresh your little heads ... yeahhhhhhhhhhh you kinda sorta need it lmao or at least a refresher on the faces. I was literally lost for a good 20-30 minutes trying to remember plot stuff from PS1. They did a very quick recap (like maybe a minute/minute and a half) of what happened so far but it was very very loose ... but that wasn't really a problem because the story flowed on its own and wasn't all too relevant. There were some obvious plot connections, but for the most part it can stand on its own.

The minimum recap gave you a pretty decent idea of PS1 - Pandya v Chola dynasty feud. Cholas are now in power, Pandya wants revenge and power, nobles want to put some Madhu guy as king of Cholas, Ponniyan Selvan drowns at sea (where PS1 ended).

The problem was REMEMBERING THEIR GOD DAMN NAMES because they keep switching it up. They give me a good, easy name to remember like Aditya. Beautiful name. Wonderful name. Fabulous name. But that same dude is also Aditya Karikalan so folks are like "Oh Aditya. Oh Karikalan." Stick to one name and be done with it. Nandini was Nandini, Pezhauauryu queen, and some other titles. Bruh. Stick to one name dammit.

The other problem was remembering who was who and which side they were on. I got confused with Aditya's friend (we'll call him Duplicate Ashish Sharma) and the Vanar boy (we'll call him Monkey because he's literally a monkey). My tiny brain cells were working over time because I had to read the subtitles, quickly soak in whatever was on the screen, and then make connections.

So yeah, if you haven't watched PS2 yet, you might be better off getting a refresher on who's who. It's not needed, but if you're like me and the names don't stick well ... it'll help.

====
I loved the cinematography and the scenery. Fantastically shot and beautiful sets.

====

The movie itself flowed well. Remember, this part was mainly focused on Nandini -- in a sense, it's her story. There are some good spoilers that I won't reveal, but in the end of Part 1, we saw that gray haired woman in the water saving Azumaril (we're calling Raja Raja Chola "Azumaril" because I can't remember his real name but it's similar to that). The one that was the Queen of the Forest or something. She looked like Nandini (and is also played by Ash). You'll learn more about her, her relation to Nandini (if any), and so on. I will say -- her role was stupid. Seriously. Worthless. Pointless. Useless. I was so frustrated with how they used Queen of the Forest Lady (I know it's based on the book, but still).

The other characters were especially sidelined in this part. Nandini/Ash carried a large part of it, and to some degree I think Aditya also played a good part - his scenes were especially nice and I especially loved his voice modulation on some scenes. The beginning is a bit flat, but he definitely picks it up. I don't remember much of how he played an alcoholic in PS1, but I loved his scenes in PS2. This wasn't so much an Azumaril movie as PS1 was - and trust meeeee ... Azumaril got sooooo boring by the end of it.

Monkey was good and funny like was in Part 1. It's stupid silly how lucky he's been. The Duplicate Ashish Sharma was okay. The old king was meh.

Ohh ohh ohhhhhhh TRISHA SUCKED HARDER THAN OVER DRIED GRAPES. Her acting scenes were so boring and stale and dry that me breathing was more entertaining than her. There's this one scene between her and Monkey and it's supposed to be a romance scene. Let me put it this way -- romance chemistry is like baking a cake. Sometimes it rises beautifully and sometimes it just falls flat. Eating a flat cake, with no frosting would be a million times better than the stale BS I witnessed between Monkey and Trisha. Washing a washer spin would be more romantic than that. Now to be fair - she barely got any screen time ... but whatever screen time she got was lousy. Could have cut her out of the movie and it wouldn't have made a difference.

I'll end with Aishwarya again. Her role as the Mandakini/Queen of the Forest (the old lady that looked like her) was lame and poor; don't get me started on that. Edit: There’s this one scene where she’s sneaking around.

It felt like this:

).

But she dazzled as Nandini in her scenes. She was elegant, she was regal, she was eloquent, she commanded the scene, and I could not take my eyes off her. This was the Nandini that I wanted in PS1, and I got her in PS2. I don't know what changed, but Aishwarya absolutely, 100% slayed her role as Nandini. Her dialogues, her gestures, her expressions were mostly superb. Oooooooof.

END VERDICT:

4-4.5 out of 5 stars. It's a good watch (there are parts you just wish you could fast forward), some plot is just pure cliche which I found annoying, but otherwise I enjoyed it a lot. I'm still not done gushing over Aishwarya (and that says a lot since I don't really gush over any actress besides Ileana even in her crappiest roles 🤣🤣🤣).

Aishwarya lovers - I hope one of you downloads the video, edits out all the non-Aishwarya scenes, and posts it somewhere. Tag me when you do, because I'd watch that again!

Finguuuu Winguuuuuu - YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS AND TELL ME HOW AMAZED AND SPARKLY YOUR EYES BECAME AFTER SEEING ASH. 🤣 THIS IS GOING TO BE YOUR MOMENT OF 2023 🤣🤣


P.S. Side rant - The ticket was overpriced as fark. I had to sell 5 kidneys to watch this movie. The fark were they thinking with a $22 price tag. No wonder the theater was empty LMAO 🤣🤣🤣

Adios, Hasta La Vista, Ciao, Salud, Byeeeeeeee. Thank you for reading my long review. 🤣🤣

This post made my day hahaha Beautiful!

🤣🤣

I’m dying and loving your review so so much. I’ve read it three times already. Vijay needs to hire you to officially post movie reviews all the time. I swear nobody does it like you.

Originally posted by: FingerFetish

🤣🤣

I’m dying and loving your review so so much. I’ve read it three times already. Vijay needs to hire you to officially post movie reviews all the time. I swear nobody does it like you.

Ohhhh here's a recap for you btw (turn on subtitles 🤣). 😆
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnVXDtZrg4

Play special attention to the Nandini parts. Just some light foreshadowing 😉🤣. I wanna see if you pick it up because my reaction would have been different 🤣🤣🤣.

Originally posted by: guenhwyvar

Ohhhh here's a recap for you btw (turn on subtitles 🤣). 😆

Play special attention to the Nandini parts. Just some light foreshadowing 😉🤣. I wanna see if you pick it up because my reaction would have been different 🤣🤣🤣.

I didn’t read the “turn on subtitles bit” and watched the whole video in pure Tamil. I was like WTF how the hell does this ass expect me to understand what’s going on. I came to complain and then noticed your instruction. 😂

Okay first of all the only name that I know is Nandini, Aditya and Kundavai (only because Kun in my language = ass). The rest went RIGHT OVER MY HEAD. I have no idea what happened except Aditya killed Nandini’s husband and that was pretty hot. 🤣

Originally posted by: FingerFetish

I didn’t read the “turn on subtitles bit” and watched the whole video in pure Tamil. I was like WTF how the hell does this ass expect me to understand what’s going on. I came to complain and then noticed your instruction. 😂

Okay first of all the only name that I know is Nandini, Aditya and Kundavai (only because Kun in my language = ass). The rest went RIGHT OVER MY HEAD. I have no idea what happened except Aditya killed Nandini’s husband and that was pretty hot. 🤣

Fast forward a bit -> Drunk Guy is at war against Pandas (who are trying to reclaim power), finds where wounded Panda leader is, kills him in front of Nandihoe (aka drunk guy's ex; aka wife of Panda leader). NandiHoe seduces Mr. Horny Fart and makes her way into the Chupacabras nobility, but homegirl is still in charge of the Panda rebels.

Fast forward some more -> Drunk Guy senses a conspiracy in the kingdom and sends Spy Monkey to figure shit out. Turns out the nobles want Mustache Man to be king because his better mustache links him to the throne. So Spy Monkey is sent to Sri Lanka where movie title guy is currently visiting because bro is laaaaazy and wants to live a peaceful life not doing shit. So friggin jealous.

Nandihoe convinces Chupacabras to arrest and bring back movie title guy, which they do, but along the way back they are ambushed by Pandas, and the ship they were traveling on sinks and movie title guy drowns. But he is saved by an grandma looking Nandihoe.

THE END

And here's a tree so you can link faces to names 😆

Originally posted by: guenhwyvar

THE END

And here's a tree so you can link faces to names 😆

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I can’t get over the family tree you edited. LMAAAOOOO! Thank you so much for dumbing it down for me. The plot and characters finally makes sense. LOL I’m going to print the tree out and put it on the wall besides the TV while watching PS1. It’ll be my reference point.

Smitten you need to see this. 😆

Originally posted by: FingerFetish

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I can’t get over the family tree you edited. LMAAAOOOO! Thank you so much for dumbing it down for me. The plot and characters finally makes sense. LOL I’m going to print the tree out and put it on the wall besides the TV while watching PS1. It’ll be my reference point.

Smitten you need to see this. 😆

Thanks for the tag FF, otherwise I woulda have missed this family tree by Gwen that will forever be remembered. 😂

But no, on a serious note, I've been wanting to give this movie a try too but I couldn't understand the first one. Partly cuz I wasn't paying attention running errands and partly cuz I was lacking this kinda walkthrough of characters. 😆😆

All thanks to Gwen, I now have a clear picture of who is what. 😆😆

Edit: I'm gonna come back to this family tree to look at it in more detail later on for reference purposes .... as a pre-movie activity.

https://www.news18.com/entertainment/bollywood/at-8-3-aishwarya-rai-bachchans-ponniyin-selvan-2-tops-imdb-rating-7728523.html