Puli - Reviews: Sridevi stuns, the film bores

With much pre release hype, a film on the scale of Puli is bound to receive mixed reviews. To be fair, none of the below is a surprise. The good, the bad and the ?-able feedback from leading critics, online and print media. Here's the most relevant bits for us; comments on Queen Sridevi!

REVIEWS

There was a lot of interest around this week's dubbed release Puli, because of the presence of Sridevi in this big budget fantasy movie. Though Sridevi doesn't disappoint in the film, this big budgeted fantasy drama falters on many fronts… The story picks up in the second half as Sridevi gets the momentum going…Sridevi towers above them all with her star presence. She has dubbed her own lines in Hindi (though a few lines in the end were clearly dubbed by someone else). Even though she looks magnetic, she really deserved much better character graph.
Bollywood Hungama

Sridevi, who makes her comeback in Tamil films, has absolutely nothing to do other than look arrogant and evil. While her costumes might give you creeps, she hardly has 15 minutes of screen time and has less than 10 dialogues in the film. It baffles me why a veteran actress like Sridevi resort to play such a demeaning and worthless role.
BollywoodLife

"Things get a little better in the second half, thanks to Sridevi’s evil queen – she gets a better ‘hero entry scene’ than the hero himself. There’s some fun watching this diva play another diva"
The Hindu
  
Fantasy adventure film Puli managed to generate a lot of intrigue, thanks to presence of diva Sridevi, who returns to Tamil cinema after 29 years. But despite her effort, the film has nothing to hold your attention.

Sridevi plays Yamanadevi, queen of the fantasy kingdom of Vedalakottai. She belongs to the ferocious clan of Vedalam warriors, but is under the spell of its evil general, Jalatharangam (Sudeep).

Sridevi effortlessly outclasses these youngsters with her immense style and admirable performance.
Rediff Review 1 by S Saraswathi.

Puli wastes Sridevi on a silly, boring fantasy.

Puli makes for a truly bad trip, warns Raja Sen. By the time Sridevi shows up in the massive-budget fantasy epic Puli, its few charms have worn off and the iconic actress appears like an empress who’s shown up at an unimaginative costume party. What, however, does Sridevi do?

When we finally see her -- the striking veteran luring us into theatres with her badass maleficence in the trailers -- the film has tortured us past intermission point and there may be no turning back.

There isn’t.

Regal and out of place as she is, Sridevi gamely embraces the lunacy and starts walking up the side of a pillar… he second half, full of long one-on-one duels, is significantly better than the first -- but that’s largely because Sridevi’s around
Rediff
Review 2  by Raja Sen


"About the best things about Puli are Sridevi’s archetypal fairy tale queen..."
Scroll. in


"A huge Sridevi fan, I confess I rushed for my special screening of Puli to see her again… only to have to wait till after interval for her entry. Damn! Life sucks , specially because the best things of life are kept for later. Sri takes long to appear. But once she’s there everyone, including Tamil superstar Vijay, back off to let the Diva take centrestage as a wicked witch-queen who makes her adversaries climb the wall, when she is not busy doing so herself. As a possessed royalty Sridevi climbs up walls literally, stretches her hand to a mile to toast a drink (amiable, aren’t we?) appears and disappears at will. It’s a delectably seductive role tailormade for the Diva. She has massive fun with her role."
SKJBollywoodnews. com