Karthik Narain who directed a gripping tale like ‘Dhruvangal Pathinaaru’ could have portrayed the theme of ‘Adbhuta’ better in ‘Project Agni.’
The story is of a scientist and radical thinker Vishnu, whose theory of the subconscious led to the creation of something more than he could handle.
Arvind Swami plays the character well bringing out the emotions of the scientist, husband and father in Vishnu using his deft facial expressions.
The character of Vishnu is immensely gifted with knowledge, but is still constantly making mistakes and regretting them.
The film is mostly a duologue between Vishnu and His friend Krishna (played by Prasanna).
Like in Christopher Nolan movies, ‘Project Agni’ also takes us into different realms mixing the past, present and future.
The idea is great, the making could have been better.
While the movie is in the present, the equipment and props used to show the machine, drifter, created by Vishnu will remind you of old sci-fi movies, which showed large boilers and nuts and bolts.
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The only thing that seemed to have been plucked out from the present world is the LED screens.
It is also surprising that a movie based on science fiction and the theme of wonder begins by telling not to pursue more knowledge than you can handle.