Tik Tik Tik review: When VFX impresses but logic doesn't

Tik Tik Tik, which the makers claim is India's first space film, is a reasonably good entertainer that engages, if one is willing to overlook the gaping holes in logic.

The film is about a vehicle being launched into space by India with a five-member team. Their objective is to fire a nuclear missile at a meteor that is hurtling towards India. They hope the missile will split the meteor into two and then the astronauts will ensure the fragments don't collide with Earth in general, and India in particular.  

What makes the mission more difficult is that the team will have to fire the missile before the meteor crosses a particular line in space or else, the purpose of firing the missile will be defeated. There is just one small problem. The team doesn't have the nuclear missile that they are supposed to use to save almost the entire coast of south India. Instead, they need to first steal it from an international space station owned by China and then carry on with the mission. Will the five-member Indian team succeed?

Make no mistake, the Tik Tik Tik team has to be congratulated just for attempting to make a film in this genre. Making a space film is a herculean task and Shakthi Soundar Rajan's team seems to have managed to pull it off, as by and large, all space sequences appear realistic.

Be it the meteor, the Indian space ship, the Chinese space station, the control room on the ground or for that matter the actual space depicted in the movie — all of them appear real. The space sequences are breathtaking and on par with what one would see in a Hollywood film. Art director SS Moorthy and the VFX team deserve praise for their work.

Cinematographer S Venkatesh seems to have done a good amount of research. The shots are well planned, and at no point in time, does one realise that these are all shot in sets.

A cinematographer needs to be accurate when it comes to working in a film that generously uses computer graphics. Thanks to perfect synchronization between Venkatesh and the CG team, the film manages to convince that the story is actually unfolding in space.

Music director D Imman's background score only adds to the strength of the film. The 'Kurumba' song has already become famous for the depiction of love between a father and his son. Imman is known for his ability to use music to convey emotions that cannot be expressed through words and gestures. In Tik Tik Tik, he accomplishes this feat yet again.

The film's cast too seems to have put in real hard work. Floating mid-air and acting is no easy task.

Jayam Ravi as Vasu, an escape artist-cum-thief, does a neat job of playing the magician who is sent on the mission to steal the missile from the space station. The actor's son Aarav Ravi, who makes his debut in this film as his son, looks cute and adorable and the chemistry between the two is commendable.

Comedians Arjunan Nandakumar as Appu and Ramesh Thilak as Venkat play Vasu's sidekicks. They are genuinely funny in most sequences and ensure that the film doesn't become too heavy for the liking of the general audience. V Jayaprakash, who plays colonel Mahendran, and Nivetha Pethuraj as army officer Swathi, are the ones who don't look too convincing in their roles.

The film has its fair share of problems. The biggest one being that logic goes out of the window on several occasions. Take for instance this particular sequence where Vasu sabotages the mission by cutting the fuel wires in the spacecraft. The fact that a local thief, who has no idea of a space vehicle and is travelling in one for the first time in his life, manages to find the fuel wires and cuts them without any assistance is a bit over-the-top.

Further, as the space vehicle leaks fuel, it has no option but to crash land. So, where does it land? It crash lands on the moon! Didn't know one could get to the moon in a space craft in a matter of just three hours. Looks like the team found a short cut!

There are more such scenes that leave you mesmerised for the wrong reasons.

The best of the lot is that Vasu is able to lift a nuclear missile weighing 200 tonnes with his bare hands from the Chinese ship, which we are told has artificial gravity! Simply speaking, the director, in a bid to glorify his hero, seems to have overdone certain portions. They annoy you on one hand and amuse you on the other. There is more but narrating it could kill the joy of watching the film and therefore, I am going to refrain from listing any further.

Director Shakthi Sounder Rajan must be lauded for spearheading such a mammoth project. To co-ordinate the efforts of all 24 departments in a regular film by itself is a daunting task. Extracting the best out of the departments in a space film would have been at least thrice as difficult as working in a regular film.

For this and for coming up with an entertainer that is worth the money you pay for, Shakthi Sounder Rajan wins brownie points..

Although the film fails in logic in some places, the story itself isn't very convincing. Tik Tik Tik deserves to be watched just for the splendid effort that the technical team has put in.