Adipurush Review: A deadly combination of lazy writing and terrible VFX

Recently released, Adipurush has received immense criticism over its religious inaccuracy, terrible visual effects and lazy writing. It makes us wonder, can a star cast really compensate for all that? Read the whole Adipurush review to know our take on the film. 

We often wonder how so much of the literary treasure of the country remains hidden for a long time. Why does it take so long for us to  discover the hidden gems that the rich culture of ours has? Young people often find themselves intrigued by the superhero concepts and adaptations of the west while they have little to no interest in what we have and they are not at fault for this. When Adipurush was announced, I was glad to be waiting for a contemporary kind of adaptation of the Epic Ramayana. The film announced a well-known cast which kind of indicated that it is definitely going to be a big budget thing. But when we watched the first trailer of the movie, we kept our expectations a little low as we could see the below average quality of visual effects in there but what else could go wrong? They messed with the VFX but there is no way that someone can mess with the writing when it is all inspired from the Ramayana? Well guess what? 

Representation and Casting 

The film earned over 140 Crore on its opening day. There were early morning screenings of the film and the theaters were full of people chanting “Jai Shree Ram” even before the film began. The audience for the film cannot be more ready for what they were about to see. Amidst the talks of religious radicalisation in the country, there couldn’t be a better time for the filmmakers to make a film that is appealing to the majority showing the ideas that have become mainstream. Mythological stories have played a major role in storytelling in India and over the last ten years we have seen a number of references to it. In such circumstances, Adipurush was bound to be a hit. Talking about the film’s casting, Prabhas and Kriti Sanon as Raghava and Janki were kinda off. Sunny Singh’s Shesh also lacked appeal. Interestingly, Saif Ali Khan made the most out of what he got in his role of Lankesh. By his appearance, he played the stereotypical muslim villain with a long beard, Kohl in his eyes, handling meat etc. His character reminded us of Alauddin Khalji played by Ranveer Singh. There is definitely something odd about the film’s casting and all of it cannot be coincidence.

Lack of depth in the story and Religious Inaccuracy

A lot has been said about the religious inaccuracy of the film and in defense of it, the filmmakers have said that it was all for the film’s attempt to make it relatable and entertaining for the younger generation. But what was shown in the film was far from acceptable. Let’s talk about the basic setting of everything, the sets, characters and visual effects. The blue color aesthetic of the film looks straight out of a western superhero film. The film had embarrassingly bad CGI which makes you wonder, where all that budget money went? But what if we say, it’s not the worst thing about the film. Adipurush degrades every good aspect of the classic Ramayana. Lankesh here shows-off his 10 heads very casually and interestingly these heads have their own personality and when he is shown consulting them for his decisions, we found it comical. In the final fight, they didn’t even discuss why Lankesh can’t be killed that easily. Same goes for the character of Kumbhakarna. Not to mention that he had zero dialogues in the film. There are no dialogues and the fight looks something out of Harry Potter. Mentioning Harry Potter reminds of the first scene where Raghava is seen fighting some demons who have a resemblance with Death eaters. The final fight was bland, both the CGI armies couldn’t find a way to connect with the audience because of very obvious reasons. Enough has been said about the writing of dialogues of the film. There aren’t many scenes where characters got to speak. Most of the dialogues are done by the Raghava, Janki and Lankesh as the whole story is centered around them. In rare circumstances, when other characters got to speak a bit, the dialogues were weirdly written. Like the scene where Shesh asks Bajrang to test his intelligence and he asks some really silly ones which made us wonder if it’s for comical relief. Bajrang has his fair share of weird dialogues as well. And then, we have Megnath and Lankesh with some. Everything about the story was really rushed. We didn’t get to know or emotionally connect with the characters and when they get the screen time to shine, they get nerfed down with such dialogues and we are still not clear on what it intended to do.

Depth in Characters:

The major problem with Adipurush we had was how even the important characters of the story are written with zero depth. The scene where Jathayu fights Ravana to save Sita was one of the most emotional moments in Ramanand’s Sagar’s Ramayan. The sad demise of Jathayu and his last conversation with Ram and Laxman never failed to make my eyes filled with tears. It just breaks my heart to see lazy writing ruin it all for me. Jathayu has no dialogues in the film and we don’t even get to see even a slightest bit of remorse on the face of Raghava and Shesh. When Jathayu falls off the sky with one wing. Raghava saw it happen and even then, we couldn’t see a single expression of sadness on his face. Another character, Mandodari, shows no emotional connection with his husband. As soon as Sita enters Lanka, she predicts what is about to come and the next scene she is in, we see her in a white saree depicting that she has already accepted the fate of Ravana. Yes, we get the intention of it but it all seems poorly done. It would have made more sense if we saw at least a single interaction between them. Watching the classic Ramayana, we felt all kinds of emotions. Especially when we saw Ravana losing his sons and grandsons in the battle. We feel how he knows that he has already been defeated but he cannot go back and has to face his karma. But the new-age adaptation lacks all of that. 

Also Read: What makes us appreciate the take of “Daredevil Musthafa” on communal harmony and religious differences

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