The film is a sequel to Shankar’s 2010 science fiction Enthiran that had Rajinikanth first play Dr Vaseegharan, Chitti and 2.0. The film had Aishwarya Rai Bachchan play Rajinikanth’s girlfriend named Sana who is a medical student.
The sequel picks up from there but the film has another female lead, Amy Jackson. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s Sana was clearly left out and sorely missed. Her only appearance was in the form of a photo, where her character calls up Dr Vaseegharan a couple of times. Apart from that, Aishwarya was nowhere seen neither was she required.
Director Shankar recently revealed why he didn’t include Aishwarya part of the sequel.
“This is a different story. The love triangle was explored in part one. 2.0 is a new story in which the characters from Robot are repeated. Chitti, 2.0 Chitti and the scientist, Vaseegaran are part of this film. It’s a whole new premise. This film didn’t demand Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s character to be there. But there is a reference to the character played by her in the earlier film in 2.0,” he said.
2.0 revolves around Dr Pakshi Rajan (Akshay Kumar), an ornithologist whose journey with birds traces back to his birth. With cell phone towers mushrooming everywhere, birds die to the point of extinction. This part of the film is where things get real, where the audience is left reminiscing about the times when sparrows would visit homes but now cease to exist. Angered by this, Pakshi goes against mobile phones, technology, people and soon enough, Chitti. Dr Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth) is consulted to save the state and he has his two humanoid robots Chitti and Nila (Amy Jackson) by his side.
Produced on an estimated budget of Rs543 crore (US$76 million), 2.0 is the most expensive Indian film. The antagonist in this film is played by Akshay Kumar who is making his Tamil cinema debut. Amy Jackson and Adil Hussain are part of the cast, too.
The film has around 11,000 VFX shots and with each shot worked on with a lot of deft and care. The film’s music is composed by AR Rahman and also has various other noted technicians on board including Oscar winner Resul Pookutty, Nirav Shah, and has lyrics by Madhan Karky. The film is also being simultaneously released in Hindi and Telugu, with the Hindi version bankrolled by Dharma Productions too, headed by filmmaker Karan Johar.
The film released on November 29 worldwide and has already been a victim of piracy, with the entire film uploaded on piracy website TamilRockers.
Read more about it here.
Also Read: JFW’s Review of 2.0
