Raghu

Something strange is happening in RW X-verse. People who are usually kattar online "activists" are trying to monkey balance their half-baked opinions of the Ramayana movie. They are admitting that they will watch it and/or asking others to watch it, and giving the excuse of "splendor", "visual effects", "pull of Ramayana", etc. When questioned or countered, they are reacting quickly & viciously, in a classic display of "the lady doth protest too much". Normally, I'd have expected all of these people to not watch the movie, if not call for outright boycott. May be it's all just organic and I'm reading too much into it. Or, may be, something else is going on.

All these people are praising ramayana are stupid when news channels are itself saying Avoid the movie

Watched #RamayanaMovie - the #Kannada version. Detailed Review of the movie. -- OVERALL -- -- Heart is in the right place, details in the wrong place. Despite several shortcomings movie is a net positive. An element of Shraddhaa permeates through the movie and makes you feel it all times. -- The strength is not in the brilliance of individual elements but the coming together all diverse elements. -- Movie makes it clear that it is not entirely based on Valmeeki, draws inspirations from other standard versions, and is a reimagination. There is no scope for expecting fidelity to Valmeeki. There are issues here we will come to that later. -- VFX is the main character of the movie. Well, all characters are VFX. Human beings are a mere property. -- CHARACTER ETCHING -- -- All characters are not well etched. The negative ones stand out. The positive ones dont. It's the story itself that elevates those positive ones not the cinematic imagination. This shortcoming is on Nitesh Tiwari. This is a vision failure. -- My personal opinion is that BWood has lost its ability to imagine traditional Indian positive characters through years of urbanization, secularization, and westernization. This needs some deep immersion into Indian literature - Kavya, Purana, Adhunika all inclusive. It has to learn from regional Indian cinema. -- Sita's character is a least well etched whereas Ravana is the most well etched. Kaikasi is surprisingly well etched. Maricha, Manthara, Kaikeyi, Shoorphanakha all standout. Wonder why Malyavan, Sumali, Mali are left out having gone into the Rakshasa past of Ravana. -- One won't even remember Kausalya. Unnecessary time waste around Vidyujjihva. A slight tinge of playfulness has been thrust onto Lakshmana's role which does not add much value. -- ACTING -- -- Acting overall is very average to above average. There is no bad performance neither is there any excellence. But certainly, leaves one expecting more. No performance absolutely stands out. -- Best Actor award goes to Jatayu. The imagination, VFX, voice everything is exceptional. Yash shines as Ravana - as is well known now. Knowing the past masters of the Rakshasa craft I still feel Yash has fallen short, but it is still outstanding. -- Shobhana as Kaikasi comes next best. Kaikasi is the surprise package of the movie. They chose the best person to essay it. Even when she appears on the screen without a word to speak, she steals the show. Seasoned actress. -- Only Shobhana and Yash live the enormity of their respective roles. Ravi Dubey as Lakshmana does full justice to the role that is given to him. Gorakhpur will proud of another illustrious son. -- Ranbir Kapoor has tried his best. The effort shows (which it should not have). The movie adds a new shade into his role where keeps a strong intrigue about why all this is happening to him. That makes the character interesting. Interestingly, his performance as Parashurama is better than his as Rama. -- Ranbir needed some more insight into Indian life and epics to have essayed this role with more depth. Arun Govil, as Rama, lived that enormity amazingly in the past. He does it Dasharatha again. Yet, I must say I had not expected even this much from Ranbir Kapoor. In the last few minutes, Ranbir Kapoor shows signs of wearing the enormity. -- Sai Pallavi as Sita is very underwhelming bordering on disappointing but that's the consequence of a very bad character etching. For all the talk of agency her character has the least of it in the movie. Lost opportunity. The Director has put out his confusion for full public view. Injustice for a good actress. -- Creative Liberty -- -- The movie is creative liberty galore. I am all for it. But they must serve something valuable/significant. But none of those Liberties standout. Wasted liberties. Except 1-2 they don't add anything significant. Will deal with them in a separate post. -- Taken in isolation some of them were potentially dangerous. But they get well positioned and woven in the overall composition and lose their otherwise damage potential. Only a discerning eye can even recognize. Most people won't. -- One of them certainly causes a damage we will see if that will get compensated in Part-2. -- The whole creative liberty thing is intriguing. What is their trouble to stick to one text and show it in its full perspective I have failed to understand. What is the difficulty in sticking to Valmeeki? Sita's agency is far better depicted through Valmeeki than any other ill-thought-through reimagination as the one in this movie. -- MOMENTS IN THE MOVIE -- -- All Moments in the movie belong to the wonderful deployment of VFX. This is not a small achievement. This is a modern technology put to a creative use to represent civilizational sensibilities. We already a round of success in Yugo Sako's Ramayana. Of course, characterisation too was better in the latter. -- Representation and Depiction of all surrounding/ecosystem/environment (City, Palace, Living Spaces, Wall Art, Forest, River, Sea, Mountain) everything adds value to the context, story, narrative and civilizational ethos. It does not fail a single moment. -- Wonderful reimagination of Pushpaka Vimaana. Even in its mechanization its mystic wonder is not lost. Extraordinarily well-done Fights. Depiction of Dandakaranya worth a special mention. -- Two scenes stood out for me. A) Rama immersing Dasharatha's ashes in the river B) Devendra going deep into the Ksheera-Sagara to meet Mahavishnu. -- There is an element of Shraddha/Bhakti within the environment itself which you feel so strongly that you end up almost missing several deviations/mistakes etc., What you miss in characters you end up forgetting because you almost didnt notice - thanks to the way the VFX brings the Ramayana world to you. Will come to controversy-elements tomorrow.

What a great movie week. First my ass is blown away by a giant lizard who can spit blue nuclear-laser bombs. Then, tonight, a piece of Hindu mythology makes 3 hours fly by like the Diwali fireworks shooting past my window. 1. Like LOTR, Ramayana embodies the word Epic. It's a glorious culmination of all those movies where you get breath-taking aerial shots (of, say, millions of soldiers about to kick ass) and you feel like watching some huge amazing thing happen at a super-scale. It's just grand as balls. 2. I'm betting Director Nitesh Tiwari would be frickin' insulted if any airline ever included this into its in-flight entertainment. No, this movie is 100% NOT for watching inside a flying plastic tube whilst chewing on chicken pasta or a cheap fruit-salad cup. This movie, not unlike Godzilla, demands that audiences sit down in front of the biggest theater their city has to offer, turn off their goddamn phones, STFU, and bask in all its glory. 3. And glory is what it serves up. The action is unreal and grabs you from the get-go. In fact about 80% of the first 30 minutes is swords clashing and bodies flying. Whilst I suspect I've seen better CGI, no one will be complaining too much. I also swear I've not seen a flying battle elephant until this movie (Jumbo obviously doesn't count). 4. Even the non-action scenes are shot like it's meant to be nominated for Best Visuals. A straight-forward Hello or Farewell sequence can be stretched 10-minutes replete with orchestral accompaniment (and this is probably my only quibble i.e. some portions took unnecessarily long and felt like Tiwari taking the self-indulgent piss). 5. The actors. As far as I'm concerned, a young Sly Stallone was Ram, Gerald Butler was Ravana, Eric Bana was Lakshman and I don't know who the actresses are but they were smokin' 🔥. 6. It helped that I'm glib about Hindu mythology so I really have no idea what's about to happen. 7. Did I prefer this movie or Ne Zha 2? If you put a Glock to my head I"ll say NZ (its visual audacity remain unmatched) but I can't deny I'm salivating for Ramayana Part 2. 8. Ram and his bow brought back Odyssey vibes.