Sorry in advance, if you are offended because of the heading. You may most likely endorse it or worse, come up with something even more nasty than that if you get to watch the movie.
If not for Prabhas, I would have slept sometime around 30 minutes after start. I cannot fathom how can people turn such an ithihaasa into such a disaster - mind you, I went with an open mind and with zero expectations.
The first obvious things that hit me were:
1) empty forehead of Ravana (or Lankesh is he?)
2) empty forehead of Mandodari - can you believe it? Of all people, Mandodari doesn't have a bindi... She is worshipped as one of the five Sumangalis and she doesn't wear a bindi. On top of it, she wears a black saree all along, draped like a burkha. Come on, such a pious and important character in the story cannot be diluted like this for cheap commercial interests.
3) empty forehead of a lot of characters
Saif Ali Khan has a lot of scope for the character. I am not expecting him to pull a terrific performance like S. V Rangarao or R. S. Manohar or NTR, but atleast 10% of it? Such a disappointment. A poonal and some CGI viboodhi in some scenes doesn't make him the ardent Siva Bhaktha he was - the lone song or two he plays - is it Saama gaanam in Kambodhi ragam? Sheer nonsense.
While Prabhas was the only reason I sat in the theatre, I can confidently say Ram Charan did miles ahead with bow and arrow in RRR than Prabhas in this movie. Prabhas did not even do 50% of what he performed in Bahubali with the bow and arrow.
The first major scene involving Ravana's creatures coming to Panchavati is a 100% copy of Harry Potter series' dementor attack scenes. In fact, even a 5-year-old child will say they are dementors. The human-like rakshasas of Ravanan's army with their skeleton faces are exact xerox copies of death eaters in robes. Talking about Panchavati, Rama was staying in a bharnashrama right, and not a cave, at the time of abduction.
Lanka was described in Ramayana as a serene, beautiful and heaven-like city - it was exact opposite in the movie. It looked like some sinister underground cave just like how it will appear in Scooby Doo Where Are You series episodes. Or worse, Azkaban. For that matter, Rama was a Suryavamsam King - almost 90% of the movie happens without sunlight!! It was all dark, dark and dark all throughout. The people who should rightfully outrage are the citizens of Sri Lanka, for misrepresenting the facts.
Some of the thrilling scenes (as we expect them to be, they aren't is a different matter) had background scores exactly the same as the old Old Spice advertisement jingle music.
My anguish is to such an extent that I feel even Pogo channel has better CGI and representation of characters - the producers had good funding, very good technology in their hands - see what they have come up with?
There are many allegations on scenes alluding to other religions - Rama's posture in front of Dasharatha looks like Jesus (to be fair, it was a B/W scene, but has sandal colour applied throughout for some unknown reason), throat slitting to abuse and kill a woman etc.
I didn't expect Indrajit to have cheap tattoos all over his torso - it looked yuck even considering the fact that he was a rakshasa.
What is the reason for not using the proper four names - Rama, Lakshmana, Ravana and Hanuman? They seem to have been replaced by Raghav, Sesh, Lankesh and Bajrang.
And to top it all, Ravana's death resulted in some nuclear explosion! The director, for some reason, has denied a graceful death for such a warrior.
Remember, the history is that Ravana was a Brahmin, Rama was a Kshatriya. Check out how they appear in the movie.
My humble request to Bollywood - please don't attempt making ithihaasa and purana stories anymore. Leave them to the experts in Tollywood. We have grown up not to expect anyone like NTR or Manohar, but atleast they will pull out a modern wonder like Bahubali or RRR. This movie is a classic example of a cat that scratched hot rod all over its body to look like a tiger. Miserable failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment