When yet another retelling of Ramayana was being conceived for the big screen, the makers of Adipurush fell short of a good screenplay and VFX and instead ended up easing their job. They effectively brought together the landscape of Game of Thrones – its flying dragons, stone castles, dark themes, and even the White Walkers—and came up with a far-fetched idea of what Lanka was like.
Then came heavy inspirations from King Kong and Planet of the Apes, so much so that the monkey army, Sugreeva, Bali, and even Hanuman, ended up looking like animated characters. And then there was poor casting – a very stolid Prabhas as Raghav, who doesn’t even flinch when his wife is abducted by Ravan and Kriti Sanon as Janaki, who is hardly charming. Dipika Chikhlia in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan and even Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a Sita-inspired role in the film Raavan had set the bar high. Saif Ali Khan is the only actor that aces his villainous character, but he looks too out of place in a Ramayana retelling.
The film would have been passable if the portrayal of Hanuman was engaging enough. However, Devdatta Nage fails to capture the essence of his character, and makers assign him cringe dialogues like ‘Ab Ravan ki Jalegi’ and ‘Jalegi tere baap ki’.
Dialogues are poorly written. While Ravan gets his fair share of dialogues, Ram and Lakshman are often seen giving plain expressions as they have very little to say. What is interesting to note is the fact that Ram, Sita and Hanuman have been called Raghav, Janaki and Bajrang, and instead of chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’ (there were enough chants from the audience though), the monkey army chants ‘Jeet waha, Raghav jaha’. However, these subtle tweaks do little to veil the agenda of the film.
When Janaki is abducted, one of the characters says, ‘Jo hamari behno pe haath dalega unki Lanka laga denge’ and Raghav responds saying, ‘Bhagwa dhwaj lagayenge’ – a little too political for Ram and his army perhaps, as the film takes place in a time and place where democracy hadn’t set in and political parties and agendas did not exist.
One can't blame the creative liberties; but things like Ravan laughing before his death (he is said to have apologised to Ram before dying), leather armour on perfectly sculpted bodies of men, Ravan popping up his 10 heads as if opening apps on his phone, the perfectly trimmed hair and beard of exceptionally good-looking men of Lanka who sport tattoos and pigtails, and a black Lanka instead of a golden one simply qualify as misrepresentation of the mythology.
Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan and even the animated Ramayanas that have followed are on a much higher pedestal than the overrated Adipurush which is replete with political ideologies, misrepresentations and poor VFX.
In all, Adipurush is a distortion of mythology and a disaster in epic proportions.
Film: Adipurush
Language: Hindi
Director: Om Raut
Cast: Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan
Rating: 1.5/5