Kudukku 2025

Story: A new technology is discovered in 2025 that allows you to track someone with a chip implanted in them. This invasion of privacy becomes a dangerous weapon in the hands of a stalker and also causes an unhealthy obsession in a jealous husband

Review: Kudukku 2025 has two stories that have been forcefully mashed into one, not allowing either to breathe. The first story is of Eve (Durga Krishna), a college student with a shady past, and her love interest, Maaran (Krishna Shankar), a gym trainer/ low level thug, who’s really good at catching things (why this is important comes up later). But their blooming romance is interrupted with the arrival of Evan (Shine Tom Chacko), who claims to be Eve’s brother, a fact that Eve denies.

The second story is that of the newly married couple Varun (Rammohan Ravindran) and Jwala (Swasika Vijay). Varun gets his hands on a tracking chip technology, which he decides to implant it in his wife without her knowledge to track her movements, only to grow ever more obsessed with it.

The only thing that really connects these two stories is that Maaran and Varun are friends and it just feels so forced and confusing to have these two plots in the same movie.

Acting wise, Durga Krishna does a good job at acting erratic and traumatised. And Shine Tom does ‘Shine’, as an unnerving stalker who is really good at throwing things (this is why the previous catching things reference was important). But there is absolutely no chemistry between both the couples in this movie, which is even more cringe-worthy in a movie with so many B grade erotic scenes.

But the acting is nothing compared to the pacing and editing. The story skips around from scene to scene unconnected and tone-deaf, made even worse by the forced insertion of songs. The best thing about the movie is the sound design. The BGM and sounds and effects have been used effectively to create a sinister atmosphere which suits the slightly horror theme the movie is going for. For some reason, they also tried to insert jokes into the movie at certain points that really did not fit in well with the serious tone the stalker story presented.

Kudukku 2025 is a confusing mess of a movie that tries to be conveying a message about how scary technology can be and how dangerous the lack of privacy is the modern era. But it tries to do too much by having us follow two completely different stories.

Also, the technology that they are telling us to be scared of seems outdated when we willingly have location tracking apps on our phones. Maybe if they just focused on the stalker story alone this movie could have been watchable or at least salvageable. But as it stands it’s a movie with a bit of horror, a bit of comedy, a bit of romance and a bit of suspense. And the saddest part is they don’t get any of the bits right.
- George Manavalan