Devotional movies seem to have increased in frequency these days and every other month brings us another version of a goddess saving her devotee. Rama.Narayanan no longer has a monopoly over such movies but that isn't necessarily a good thing as the new directors follow the same principles as he. So we have Bharathi Kannan mixing two recent devotional movies and adding generous dollops of computer graphics to come up with Sri Raja Rajeswari.

Rasaiya(Ramki) and Rajeswari(Ramya Krishnan) are tribal newly weds, out for a midnight stroll in the forest. Three drunk businessmen('Nizhalgal' Ravi, Thyagu, Ponnambalam) accost them and when Rajeswari refuses to succumb to their advances, they kill the couple. Rajeswari is them reborn as the child of a poor couple and once she remembers her past, starts taking her revenge. Once she has disposed off the first two, she finds out that the son of the third is a look-alike of Rasaiya. When Rasaiya ends up marrying the girl(Sangavi) of his father's choice, Rajeswari attempts to prevent the consummation of their relationship and steal her husband back.

It is obvious that the makers of devotional movies want to cash in on the craze and are churning such movies out regularly. But they are rapidly running out of new plots and Sri Raja Rajeswari, which is nothing but a mix of two movies, both quite fresh in memory, is a clear example of this. The revenge plot, though nothing new, reminds us of Rama.Narayanan's Nageswari while the story of a woman trying to steal her husband back was the theme of Thaali Kaatha Kaliamman (the difference here is that the heroine this time around is the stealer while our sympathies were with the wife in the earlier film).

But as in all recent devotional movies, the plot is used as little more than a clothesline on which to hang scenes based on special effects. The graphics here are a little better than usual with the shapes that terrorise Thyagu and Ponnambalam being quite scary. Infact, the movie on the whole is bloodier and more serious than the recent movies. But the graphics take a backseat once the story moves to Ramya Krishnan trying to prevent Ramki and Sangavi from consummating their relationship. Though one of the tricks she uses is pretty distasteful, the others are a little better(even if not especially clever).

Ramki has become one of the devotional movie heroes and is adequate. Ramya Krishnan is impressive as the scorned woman and her eyes radiate anger convincingly. Sangavi is lost as the woman trying to save her husband. 'Nizhalgal' Ravi makes a good villain while Thyagu and Ponnambalam overact. Banupriya has a meatier role when compared to Thaali Kaatha Kaliamman and also gets the chance to display her dance skills. Deva is in charge of the music for the first time for a devotional movie but does nothing special. The song featuring all names of Amman is sure to drive the viewers that the movie targets, into a devotional frenzy.