Adipurush

The Ramayan is a beloved and well-known Indian epic, which holds a lot of significance. Director Om Raut roped in Prabhas for his version of the epic, titled Adipurush, which was released in theatres today. The movie has been carrying a lot of expectations, and let’s see how it has turned out to be.

Story:
The story of Adipurush has not been tweaked much and remains loyal to the period of vanvas of Lord Rama and Sita, from the Ramayana. Rama launches a war on Ravana, with help from the vanara sena, after the latter abducts Sita and takes her to Lanka, where he holds her captive. The rest of the story is about Sita being rescued. With the exception of a few name changes in the movie, the whole film is true to the source material.

Analysis:
The technical aspects of the film have been doubted since the day the teaser of the film was released. While the movie has better effects, they’re still not up to the mark, especially when the budget of the film is considered.

Coming to the direction of the film, the director has stuck to the source material, but that’s not to say that it particularly touches the hearts of the audiences. The major thing that’s lacking in the film is emotions, which are highly important when adapting something like the Ramayan to the big screen. The biggest emotion in the film is that of the abduction of Janaki from Raghava, who are husband and wife, which drives Raghava, someone who believes in justice, to wage a war against the abductor.

The other major flaw of the movie is the design of Saif Ali Khan’s Ravana, which is more stylish and contemporary, than the way it is supposed to be. It would be easy to believe that Adipurush’s Ravana belongs in the current world than in Tretayugam. The royalty and the honorary personality of Ravana are also missing in the film. Very famously, Ravana is a staunch Brahmin and a wonderful king, who took great care of his people and kingdom, with his only flaw being abducting Sita. This is missing from the film, which treats Ravana as a one-note character, and as a regular commercial movie villain.

Coming to Prabhas, while he has tried his best, he doesn’t look very convincing as Lord Rama, who was known for being a soft-spoken person, and someone who was boyishly handsome. Prabhas looks more like Amarendra Baahubali in the movie, than like Rama.

Kriti Sanon as Janaki is very good, but her character’s emotions haven’t been dealt with very well by the director. Had it been so, it would have worked wonders. The character of Lakshmana has also not been given much scope, with Lakshmana having been turned into a character with just a single expression. Lord Hanuman’s character is also a letdown.

The motion capture technology of the entire movie is a hit and a miss, with many scenes making it very obvious that Prabhas and Saif Ali Khan weren’t actually present on set, and body doubles were used in their stead, on whom the actors’ faces have been superimposed.

On the whole, Adipurush is a movie that will not appeal to South audiences, as the emotions are not in sync with the way the audiences receive them here. While the efforts of the movie are good, it could have been so much better.

Finally: Watch Adipurush for some cool action sequences.