Adipurush Review

Adipurush opens with a disclaimer, but it's not the standard "resemblance is purely fictional" spiel. Instead, it's a longish statement about the film's intention to be "true to the essence and spirit" of India's greatest epic, suggesting that Adipurush is, perhaps, not to be seen as a movie, but as a "work of worship".

By its own rubric, what follows is three hours of sacrilege.

The first noticeable thing about Adipurush is its bleak colour palette. What should have been a verdant and Eden-ic forest where Rama, Sita and Lakshmana spend their years in exile is a sparse, Fanta-orange world that no creature seems particularly thrilled to be in. Rama and Sita do not reside in the bamboo hut from our childhood imaginations but in a pitch-dark cave on the edge of a cliff (Mufasa's Lair from The Lion King comes to mind).

In Lanka, Ravana's kingdom of gold has disappeared, replaced by towering granite spires that keen-eyed observers will find to be an exact replica of Asgard, only blackened. Inside, Ravana engages in a series of perplexingly mundane tasks: feeding his pet bats, strumming his veena, and even getting a snake massage. At one point, he is seen blacksmithing.

Desolation fills every frame. Where are Lanka's citizens? Where are the tribals of Dandakaranya? Where is everyone? Aside from the named characters that form the narrative of Adipurush, spanning from Sita's abduction to Rama's victory over Ravana, no other humans inhabit Om Raut's Ramayan. It is a gloomy world filled with sinister beings already brought to life by other, far more accomplished filmmakers. Dementors from Harry Potter and orcs from The Lord Of The Rings make appearances. The monkeys, at least, are Valmiki's creation, but they are portrayed as an uncannily melancholic bunch, heaving and hauling stones like enslaved labour when it's time to build the Ram Setu.

Murky graphics dominate the film's narrative, demanding shorter conversations to make room for extended fight sequences. Take the scene when Sabari meets Rama. It is meant to be a tenderhearted moment when a frail old lady finally meets her Lord after a lifetime of longing. But in Adipurush, there is no time to linger and indulge in the human element. Hastily, Sabari thanks Rama and walks into the fire to end her life. The handful of fruit she had just offered to Rama lies abandoned by his side.

No scene escapes the overwhelming CGI hammer that transforms everything into a canvas for digital pounding. Even in the iconic Lakshman Rekha scene, instead of drawing a line, Lakshmana simply pokes the ground with his arrow, leaving the rest to be filled in post-production.

The overpowering influence of graphics seeps into the performances as well. While Prabhas brings respectability and heft to his portrayal of Lord Rama, he falls short of inspiring wonder and awe. Kriti Sanon plays a demure Sita, but there is a persistent childish clumsiness in the way she speaks, perhaps attributed to her dubbing. Every story, including the Ramayana, needs a joker, and in Adipurush, Saif's Ravana unwittingly becomes one. From his awkward walk to the comically bad animation of his ten heads, Ravana becomes a giant goof. But can we truly blame the actors or the CGI team for the shortcomings of Adipurush when the underlying vision was flawed from the start?

Instead of utilizing the modern arsenal of cinematic techniques to bring the epic tale to life in a breathtaking manner, Adipurush becomes an enormous debacle. Even a pleasing soundtrack can barely salvage the mood.

Ultimately, Adipurush ridicules its own purported goals. It was meant to be a proud celebration of Indian heritage, but sadly, it seizes every opportunity not only to imitate but to shamelessly steal ideas from other films, offering not even a shred of originality to our cinematic landscape.