Watch reviewAdipurush Movie Review: Yes, it’s that time of the year. Adipurush has finally hit the screens.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say that back in the day, mythology used to be a favourite genre among filmmakers. And then came the 2000s that saw a plethora of modern-day screen interpretations of the two epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. Return Of Hanuman (2007), Rajneeti and Raavan (both 2010) are a few examples. Filmmaker Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra Part One: Shiva (2022) might not have been inspired by the epics but it was heavily rooted in Indian mythology. Filmmaker SS Rajamouli had also revealed that his Baahubali series was inspired from Mahabharata along with Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha comics.
But Adipurush happens to be a true-blue retelling of Maharishi Valmiki’s Ramayana. Through the song Ram Siya Ram, we’re given a background of how Ayodhya’s prince Raghava gets married to Janaki and then sent to a fourteen-year exile by his father, King Dasharatha, on the demand of the former’s stepmother Kaikeyi. While in the forest, Janaki gets kidnapped by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka on the request of his sister Surpanakha as a revenge as her nose gets cut off by Lakshmana. Soon, Raghava and Lakshmana travel to the island of Lanka with the help of Bajrang’s army with an aim to rescue Janaki. Now, this is a plot that is largely familiar. The challenge for the makers lied in keeping the audience engaged throughout its almost three-hour runtime. Have they been able to achieve so? Well…
National Award winning director Om Raut deserves applause for his vision and larger-than-life dream of bringing Ramayana alive on the screen for the millennials and the Gen-Z. He has mounted the film on a massive and opulent scale. Many reports claim that Adipurush has been made with a staggering Rs 500 crore. Though we don’t know the real numbers, looking at the canvas of the Prabhas and Kriti Sanon starrer, one wouldn’t question its three-digit figure budget. The art direction by Sagar Mali is spectacular. Each frame and vignette looks like an oil painting.
The credit for the same also goes to its VFX team, who has diligently reworked the special effects after the first teaser of Adipurush was widely slammed by many on social media. To all those waiting to catch a show, we strongly recommend them to experience the magnum opus in 3D. But mind you, most parts of it may make it look like an amateurish live-action animation piece. If you manage to keep that aspect aside, it shouldn’t disappoint you much.
What becomes a weak link in the film is its runtime. At a time when our attention spans are fast dwindling, helming a three-hour film becomes a tricky idea. Adipurush turns out to be a long-drawn and extremely stretched-out affair. This is exactly where our biggest fear comes true. The familiarity of the event-heavy plot coupled with its duration test your patience many a times. A two-part storytelling much like Ponniyin Selvan would have definitely helped the film. What makes up for it is its music composed by Ajay-Atul and Sachet-Parampara. Ajay-Atul, particularly, is in their element and with Jai Shri Ram, they once again prove that orchestral music is still very much a part of Indian storytelling. Adipurush, indeed, makes for an interesting addition to their oeuvre.
The dialogues, on the other hand, make the screenplay a bumpy ride. While credit goes to Manoj Muntashir for not resorting to Sanskritised Hindi for the dialogues that can be easily deciphered by the audience, some of Raghava’s lines are extremely didactic and intellectualised. In a few other scenes, the dialogues are so unintentionally colloquial that you end up cracking up. In a key scene, one of Ravana’s henchmen is seen hurling ‘yeh tera bua ka bageecha nahi hai…’ to Bajrang who is sent by Raghava to check on Janaki in Ashoka Vatika.
Prabhas perfectly embodies Raghava. The dignity, heroism and stoutness he brings to the table is commendable. It might just become the next iconic character he will be known for, following Baahubali. He ably carries the film on his shoulders and is sure to win the hearts of his fans - who already deify him - all over again. Prabhas seems to be just the right fit to play Raghava. He does his best to adopt Raghava’s characteristics and yet makes the character his own. When he’s not defying gravity and flying in the air and dishing out pearls of wisdom, the profound stillness in his eyes adds a lot of weightage, especially to the intense sequences. However, there are far too many low-angle, slow motion shots of him, which gets repetitive after a point of time.
Kriti as Janaki looks stunning. She embodies a rare blend of vulnerability and strength, remains an integral force to drive Raghava’s actions and delivers a class act. She complements the larger-than-life quotient of Prabhas with her restrained performance and excels in it. Their chemistry, particularly, in the song Tu Hai Sheetal Dhaara hits the right note.
Coming to Saif Ali Khan, his Ravana is written and portrayed through the lens of naivety. He gets reduced to mere mockery and in most of the scenes, he is either scene grumbling loudly or randomly consulting with nine other of his alter-egos. He is demonised to such an extent that he is given the most bizarre gait as a personality trait and made to wear black at all times. For an actor of Saif’s calibre and who has time and again challenged the status quo, fearlessly experimented and set new norms, his Ravana is disappointing. The scene where he kidnaps Janaki looks heavily inspired from Game Of Thrones when Viserion, the Night King, rode a dragon. And when his piśāca-like creature is seen fighting Jatayu mid-air, it reminds you of Vhagar and Arrax locking horns in The House Of Dragons.
For Sunny Singh, Lakshmana is a major departure from the regular boy-next-door image that he has become synonymous with, thanks to the Pyaar Ka Punchnama series and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018). Though with this part, he could defy the image attached to him, he doesn’t have much to do and in most scenes, appears confused and blank. Devdatta Nage as Lord Hanuman draws attention with his comic timing and bravado.
But has Om managed to live up to Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (2020)? Maybe not. Is it a game-changer? No. But Adipurush is a visual extravaganza that entertains and enlightens you. The film marks the beginning of an era where mythology seems to have once again captured the imagination of filmmakers. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing what Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s Ramayana, Kangana Ranaut’s Sita: The Reincarnation and Deepika Padukone’s Draupadi have in store for us!
