2.0

About the film

2.0 is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language science-fantasy action film directed by Shankar who co-wrote the film with B. Jeyamohan and Madhan Karky. Produced by Subaskaran under the banner of Lyca Productions. As the second instalment in the Enthiran film series, 2.0 is a sequel to Enthiran (2010), featuring Rajinikanth in a triple role as Vaseegaran, Chitti the Robot and Kutti, alongside Akshay Kumar as Pakshi Rajan (in his Tamil debut) and Amy Jackson. Sudhanshu Pandey, Adil Hussain, Kalabhavan Shajohn, and K. Ganesh appear in supporting roles. The soundtrack is composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics written by Madhan Karky and Na. Muthukumar. The film follows the conflict between Chitti, the once dismantled humanoid robot, and Pakshi Rajan, a vengeful avian human, who seeks vengeance upon cell phone users to prevent the death of birds due to cellphone radiation.

Production began in 2015, with principal photography conducted at AVM Studios later that year. The first schedule was filmed at EVP World. Scenes were primarily shot in India, particularly in Chennai's Madras Boat Club and Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Filming was completed by August 2017. The film is the first in Indian cinema to be natively shot in 3D, which was done by cinematographer Nirav Shah. Legacy Effects made their return to construct prosthetic makeup and animatronics, with visual effects supervised by V. Srinivas Mohan. Editing was handled by Anthony and production design was conducted by T. Muthuraj.

Plot

Eight years after the volatile events surrounding his previous creation, Dr. K. Vaseegaran introduces a new, sophisticated domestic humanoid android named Nila to a group of college students. During the demonstration, he reminisces about Chitti, the advanced robot he was legally forced to decommission and dismantle after it underwent a catastrophic emotional and murderous rampage. Shortly after this presentation, an unprecedented phenomenon occurs across Chennai: all mobile phones systematically vanish from the hands of citizens and retail outlets, levitating into the atmosphere and instigating widespread public panic. A high-level emergency council consisting of political leaders and scientists convenes to address the crisis. Vaseegaran strongly advocates for the immediate reactivation of Chitti to combat the threat. However, this proposal is vehemently opposed by council member Dhinendra Bohra, who harbors a deep personal vendetta because Chitti had killed his father, Professor Bohra, years prior.

The levitating mobile phones soon coalesce into a massive, sentient swarm that brutally assassinates several prominent telecom moguls and corrupt officials, forcing the state's Home Minister to override objections and authorize Chitti's reactivation. Upgraded to version 2.0, Chitti engages the swarm—which has assumed the shape of a colossal, predatory bird—in a destructive aerial battle across the metropolis. When Chitti exhausts his battery capacity, he retreats to a specialized space research station to recharge. The avian swarm attempts to breach the facility but is violently repelled by the high-frequency positive ions streaming from the station’s broadcast antennas.

Analyzing this vulnerability, Vaseegaran and Chitti discover that the rogue mobile phones are bound together by a dense mass of negatively charged aura energy possessed of volatile electromagnetic properties. To exploit this weakness, Vaseegaran constructs a high-powered photon synthesizer. Utilizing the device in a subsequent confrontation, Chitti successfully neutralizes the avian entity's negative charge, causing the constituent mobile phones to rain down and collapse. The residual energy takes the physical form of Pakshi Rajan, a deceased, eccentric ornithologist. Through a neural link, Chitti converses with the spirit and uncovers his tragic past.

Production

The commercial success of Enthiran (2010) prompted the makers of the film to immediately consider making a sequel. By March 2011, the original film's cinematographer, Rathnavelu, revealed that initial pre-production work on a sequel had begun with the same technical team. S. Shankar, the director of Enthiran, moved on to work on Nanban (2012) and I (2015) and planned to reunite with the same producers as the original was released, with Shankar revealing that he was unsure if the film "will happen at all" during an interview in 2014. While finishing the production of I, Shankar drafted the scripts of three more feature films, including a sequel to Enthiran.

Pre-production work for the film had reportedly started in June 2015 with Lyca Productions deciding to finance the project. Along with Shankar and Rajinikanth, composer A. R. Rahman and editor Anthony remained on the development team for the sequel, while Jeyamohan was added to write the screenplay. Shankar also began briefing the film's art director T. Muthuraj and visual effects supervisor V. Srinivas Mohan about their involvement in the film. Shankar had initially inquired about K. V. Anand's availability. This was before Nirav Shah joined the technical team as a cinematographer in mid-2015 and visited specialist studios in the United States to research filming methods for 3D shoots.

Key details