Ayalaan review: Sivakarthikeyan-alien’s adventure ride delivers enough entertainment in this sci-fi thriller

Sivakarthikeyan’s Ayalaan is finally out after a long wait. The actor has a fetish for superhero stories.

In his previous film Maaveeran (2022), the young actor played a cartoonist who stood against evil. In his 2019 release Hero, he played a youngster who wanted to become a superhero.

And now, in Ayalaan, Sivakarthikeyan plays a protagonist with supernatural powers.

However, in the latest outing, the actor takes the adventurous ride to the next level as he befriends an alien. And guess what? The movie has all the elements to keep us entertained.

Here’s the review:

Synopsis

“Fight against the evil forces” — that’s the theme of all superhero films, and Ayalaan is no exception.

It opens with a gas leakage in Madagascar, which claims the lives of many people.

Aryan (Sharad Kelkar), who owns Aryan Industries — a multinational company that deals with natural gas, is responsible for the accident.

Now, Aryan wants to extract “Nova Gas” from an abandoned mine in Chennai.

Meanwhile, aliens are aware of the issues on Earth. They believe human beings are the worst species on Earth. So, an alien is sent to Earth in search of “Sparc”, a solid substance that helps in the extraction of “Nova Gas”.

Well, this is very unlike other alien movies. It’s quite an interesting thought by director R Ravikumar — the aliens saving Nature.

At times when the Mars mission became a reality, the thought of aliens visiting Earth was not a weird idea.

On Earth, Tamiz (Sivakarthikeyan) is a farmer. He is a normal person living in Tamil Nadu’s Poombarai village.

His visit to Chennai takes him to encounter the alien, who is on a mission. Later, Tamiz takes up the task of destroying the evil.

This is the gist of Ayalaan.

Mission Nature

The major highlight of Ayalaan is humour. The director optimally uses Sivakarthikeyan, Yogi Babu, and Karunakaran in the comedy scenes.

Though some scenes, like the cycle chase, remind us of similar sequences in several Tamil and Malayalam films, they land well.

In Ayalaan, the director tries to show the ill effects of exploiting Nature. He briefly explains how plastic pollutes the earth how much time paper takes to decompose, and the importance of agriculture.

The alien, named Tattoo by Tamiz, knows these minute details as soon as he enters the planet.

The main theme, however, is based on a large canvas of gas emissions, spaceships, UFOs, extraterrestrial elements, and how a greedy corporate businessman and his supporters are polluting the planet.

The first half of Ayalaan ensures that all characters are well-placed, along with the mandatory intro song of the hero.

There is a hilarious scene involving Tattoo, which is aimed at the family audience.

All these remind us of director Ravikumar’s Indru Netru Naalai (2015) and Shankar’s sci-fi film 2.0 (2018), headlined by Superstar Rajinikanth, which discussed similar concepts.

Brilliant VFX

Being a science fiction, Ayalaan has brilliant VFX work.

For instance, in the initial scenes, a herd of elephants is shown searching for a baby elephant. It does not look like an animated scene on the first watch.

The next best scene is the alien arriving on Earth through a spaceship.

The VFX has elevated many scenes, especially in the climax fight.

Nirav Shah’s cinematography is a boon to the film.

Ruben’s editing has done justice to the project.

The music by AR Rahman is a plus for the movie. He has sung a couple of songs, which go by the festive mood.

Also Read: Trailer of Sivakarthikeyan’s ‘Ayalaan’ released

Performances

Sivakarthikeyan proved his mettle in comedy scenes. In Ayalaan, he is at his best. He performs the stunts, choreographed by Anabariv, decently well.

Rakul Preet Singh, as Tara, has nothing much to do and does not have much screen space either.

Bollywood actor Sharad Kelkar as Aryan plays a dreadful villain. He looks better than other non-Tamil villains who appeared in recent Tamil films.

Isha Kopikar, as Eliza, gets a meaty role. She performs some high-octane fight sequences, too.

Karunakaran and Yogi Babu’s characters are similar to their previous comedy roles. But they play a major role in the flick.

Verdict

Ayalaan is a science-fiction movie with equal amounts of comedy, action, songs, and aliens. All these elements make it a good entertainer.

(Views expressed here are personal.)