Adipurush, made on a huge budget of 700 crores (so the makers claim) supposedly an adaptation of Valmiki’s Ramayana makes you tired with its running time of three hours begins with Ravana (Saif Ali Khan) doing penance in front of Brahma and Ravana abducting Janaki (Kriti Sanon) in the disguise of a sadhu and provoking Ram to come for him with the kind of rage which usually isn’t the emotion you’d connect with him. Fast forward to Ram seeking the help of Sugreev, Lord Hanuman (Devdatta Nage), and his brother Lakshman (Sunny Singh), and setting out on the journey of bringing Janaki back from Ravana’s control.
The narrative wastes no time in establishing characters or Ram’s aura or what led to his exile from Ayodhya. The director does not at all waste time on building up the story of what led Ram to be banished from Ayodhya on exile and just focuses on Janaki’s treacherous abduction by Ravan and the epic Ram vs Ravan battle fought for her rescue.
To appease the young crowd, the battle scenes recreate the iconic Avengers’ huddle warding off a larger army of Ravan’s CGI rakshasas. The war in the second half is engaging and redeems a rather dull and stagnant first half that lacks thrill and also lacks pace or even a sense of urgency that the story which is as old as the hills demands. The biggest drawback of the three hour long film is that its narration feels extremely bland in the first half and does not at all evoke the kind of emotional gravity that you would expect from an epic tale like Ramayana, especially when after the film is over, you don’t feel invested in the characters enough.
As far as the performances are concerned, while Saif Ali Khan’s invincible Ravan exudes manic character energy in this stoical retelling of an epic, and he steals the show with his wicked mannerisms. While Prabhas (voiced brilliantly by Sharad Kelkar) maintains a heroic presence as Ram, he sadly falters with his borrowed voice though we tend to miss the ever smiling Ram as portrayed by Arun Govil in the epic TV serial Ramayan. Kriti has been wasted as Janaki in a listless role. Though she looks graceful, Raut has hardly given her any space to make an impact on the battle between two hyper-masculine men, though she does speak rudely to Lankesh.
To sum up, on the flipside, I should say that if you have read Ramayan, you will fail to be moved by the situations in the film. Sadly, instead of a deep study of human nature, Om Raut sees the epic as an action-adventure and seeks to engage the video game-crazy audience in all age groups who marvel at the sight of Marvel’s Avengers and the dialogues like ‘Jo hamarai beheno ko hath lagayega uski lanka laga denge”, “Kapda tere baap ka, tel tere baap ka, aag tere baap ki, aur jalegi bhi tere baap ki.” etc by Hanuman, played with aplomb by Devdatta Nage, sounds too pedestrian. Trupti Toradmal, Asha Sharma, Tejaswini Pandit, lend good support. The cinematography is top-notch, be it underwater or sepia toned. The editing is slick but could have trimmed the lengthy first half a little bit. Ajay- Atuls music is a good mixture of sound and hymns. .
The film will prove to be a dud at the box-office.
Platform of Release- Theatrical
– Review by Jyothi Venkatesh
Credits of Adipurush:
Producers- Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar and Om Raut
Director- Om Raut
Cast of Adipurush:
Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan, Vatsal Seth, Bijay Anand, Tejaswini Pandit, Trupti Toradmal, Sonal Chauhan, Devdatta Nage and Sunny Singh