‘Mookuthi Amman 2’ movie review: Nayanthara’s Amman has divine powers, but cannot defeat bad filmmaking

Nayanthara in ‘Mookuthi Amman 2’

Childhood, more often than not, becomes the bedrock on which one’s faith gets built. For a generation of Indian millennials, televised fictional takes on religious stories became their first introduction to mythology. For gods to become lords of children, they must first become their friends. They need to become accessible and speak in a language children are all the more familiar with, and the many television serials (like the iconic Ramayana), animated cartoons (like the many inspired by Krishna), and movies did a great job at that — even a superhero like Shaktimaan spoke about Hindu beliefs. Down south, a mini revolution took shape, thanks to filmmakers like Rama Narayanan, AP Nagarajan, and Kodi Ramakrishna. The ‘amman padam’ sub-genre was born.

It worked. Children loved these gods so much they would dress up as Krishna or Amman. On a Sunday afternoon, you might have found one dressed as Lord Ram, his cousin as Lord Krishna, and their army of mini plastic mortals battling it out for whatever was at stake that afternoon. Somehow, even as other gods remained in vogue, Amman lost popularity on Tamil screens for a couple of decades, until RJ Balaji put a fantasy-comedy spin on her in 2020’s Mookuthi Amman.

Nayanthara in stills from ‘Mookuthi Amman 2’

And now, with the latest Deepavali release, Mookuthi Amman 2, Tamil filmmaker Sundar C so desperately wants to make Amman a superhero-esque figure for kids that much of the imagery seems conceived to fill the toy shelves with Amman action figures. I kid you not! In one sequence, Nayanthara’s titular goddess takes down an army of soldiers, and you begin to wonder if Sundar was like a fly on the wall during a writing session of a tacky, in-development Marvel/DC movie. Amman’s soolam flies like Thor’s axe Stormbreaker in Avengers: Infinity War; she conjures a shield akin to Doctor Strange’s Tao Mandalas to take down a Hela-inspired villain, Bhaira (Regena Cassandrra); remember Thor reclaiming Mjölnir in the climactic battle against Destroyer in Thor? Amman does that too, and even Wonder Woman must have been shocked to see a Lasso of Truth-inspired artefact. Throw in a bit of Harry Potter and Mummy.

I don’t mean to say these inspired ideas cannot be rehashed for Amman, but even those superhero films would make a mark only if the underlying story and emotional core hit the bullseye. Sundar, however, treats Mookuthi Amman 2 like a spiritual sequel to Aranmanai 4. A time-worn story — of a policewoman named Anandhi (Nayanthara) who has nightmares of a previous birth (she’s Amman. Big surprise?) — tries to ground the film in realism. However, this completely strips the story of any emotional stake. You know Anandhi will become Mookuthi Amman and that the protagonist will not die in this film. And Sundar C goes the long way around to elevate Bhaira and her partner (Duniya Vijay) as formidable foes, and to compensate for the lack of emotional stakes, says a bunch of innocent children might turn to toast if Amman doesn’t appear. Freaky much, Mr Sundar?

The film is so formulaic that the first half is about Anandhi’s quest to find answers to her nightmares, and the second, garnished with mind-numbing Yogi Babu comedy, shows the Amman-Bhaira flashback and the climactic showdown. I enjoyed a couple of ideas surrounding Anandhi, like how her innate strength must have led her to become a cop or how her soolam-wielding skills from her previous birth come in handy in a scene featuring Nithin Sathya. But beyond her hidden identity, Anandhi has no real characteristics that help us understand who she is. Her career is going well (no boyfriend trouble or traumatic past), and we get nothing about her inner or outer world. Thus, Sundar squanders the opportunity to use Amman to speak to the modern woman, for whom Tamil cinema’s Amman needs to be more than just a female superhero-esque deity.

Ahead of the film’s release, Instagram content creator Madhu (@wtfmadhu) spoke about the quintessential Tamil cinema Ammans representing female rage. We all know how those Amman films had a wild, free-haired deity taking down enemies for the sake of an innocent female devotee who often suffered due to patriarchy. “Most people assume that when women watch these movies on screen, they feel represented by the devotee’s character. But I beg to differ. One of the main reasons the amman movies attracted a majority of women crowds back then and even now is not only because they could see themselves in the devotee — through her pain or her tears — but because they could see themselves in Amman, in her rage — a rage that is not allowed to exist in real life,” said Madhu.

Sundar, in his attempt at a modernised Amman padam, could have used this precise reading. In Mookuthi Amman 2, he blends those identities — the devotee and the deity — into one character. So we don’t see Anandhi reckon with the discovery that she is a goddess. This Amman also doesn’t really rage like the Amman we are accustomed to. Nayanthara looks like the goddess Sundar wants for his film, but the question remains whether this is the film Amman deserves. Sundar also nerfs the goddess (“she is a mere kaaval deivam,” says a villain), reducing her to gimmicky tricks to fit the superhero archetype. In fact, Bhaira gets all the backstory and the emotional heft (she loses her child and her soulmate!).

Regena Cassandrra in stills from ‘Mookuthi Amman 2’

Regena becomes the only respite in this otherwise bland film, but the writing doesn’t support her efforts enough. A random man in 2026 seems to know a detail about Mookuthi Amman that Bhaira (who is 2000+ years old) is unaware. Know your enemies, Bhaira!.

After a rather tedious second half, the climax could have redeemed a bit. I whispered “on your left” twice during the climax, but even superhero team-ups aren’t executed satisfyingly here. And why do those two surprise characters become cheerleaders instead of helping Amman? Also, the film repeatedly contradicts the very rules it establishes for its world: if Mookuthi Amman can appear during a specific cosmic event, how did she appear earlier when Anandhi wielded the Mjölnir — sorry, soolam. Sure, maybe Amman can manifest temporarily through Anandhi before that cosmic event, but how does she use her divine power and kill a villain during that manifestation?

In my pre-release interview with Sundar C, he called Mookuthi Amman 2 a departure from the traditional amman padams because, here, the Amman has to save herself. The film, however, makes you wonder who she needs saving from — the villain or dull filmmaking.

Mookuthi Amman 2 is currently running in theatres

Tamil cinema / Indian cinema / The Hindu MetroPlus