27 June,2024 12:26 PM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from Kalki 2898 AD
While on screen only for brief but effective bits, Amitabh Bachchan, 81, plays an eight-feet tall Ashwatthama, aged 6,000 years plus, in Kalki 2898 AD. Which, from our basic reading of Mahabharat means he's immortal, although looking almost mummified!
You also don't need Devdutt Patnaik-grade knowledge of ancient Indian texts to know that Kalki refers to the final and still anticipated, saviour avatar of Lord Vishnu.
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Of which Lord Krishna was one - having fought with the Pandavas against Kauravas' army, with Ashwatthama in it, in the battle of Kurukshetra.
This film starts with the Mahabharat, and a younger version of Bachchan, which made me wonder if that gent was an AI image, or simply an actor with looks matching the superstar!
The hero here is, one, Bhairava, many millennia later, given to gentle buffoonery. Much like the ditsy Deadpool with deadpan humour, if you may.
For all the context-setting, with mythology posing as history, it's this lead character you learn nothing about - leaving you scratching your head, on occasion, up until the end of this futuristic, super-hero cum dystopian, sci-fi, alternate reality.
What's important, from the audience's perspective, is that the badass, bounty-hunter Bhairava, with immeasurable superpowers is actor Prabhas.
Even self-referencing the number of his "rebel fans" in the theatre, since he's the anointed Rebel Star, after all. He's introduced with an action sequence underlaid by a track that goes from devotional, Punjabi hip-hop to western jazz/classical.
That flex was, in fact, my initial apprehension stepping into the hall. Given Prabhas's pictures that I've groaned through since Baahubali!
To be clear on that account: Kalki 2898 AD > Radhe Shyam > Adipurush > Saaho > Salaar. But even more importantly with Kalki, and which is rarest for a film that goes on for three hours straight: second half > first half!
This isn't to suggest the Prabhas titles mentioned above haven't had better footfalls than many desi movies at the marquee still. Which explains the level of investment for CGI gems in this film, of course. Hollywood can easily afford this bang, because they've got a global market to recover their buck.
The only way an Indian movie can match such scale is, if it's at least watched by Indians, across regions, for what's termed the âpan-India picture'.
The audacity of sheer ambition places Hyderabad writer-director, Nag Ashwin (Mahanati), 38, aiming for an âSS Rajamouli', no less. Or even Ram Gopal Varma, from the same city, for that matter. Both the latter directors make a cutesy cameo in Kalki!
Hence, also, a pan-India casting, along with Telugu ârebel star' - if you notice: Deepika Padukone, Bollywood heroine, originally from Bengaluru, as female lead.
Even Disha Patani, from Bareilly, UP, opposite Prabhas, while the Malayali Dulquer Salmaan shows up as his father. Besides, Bachchan fighting Bachchan, in what I felt was the movie's ultimate money-shot.
The villain with the longest screen time is the Bengali âBob Biswas' (Saswata Chatterjee), playing Commander Manas, chief consigliore of one, Supreme, i.e. the Tamil super-star Kamal Haasan, a half-naked fakir, with body/face of Groot, from Guardians of the Galaxy. You can hardly tell Haasan's here, though, and he's hardly there, anyway.
He lords over a parallel, posh universe called Complex, that everybody in the only surviving city, Kashi, wants to get into. Think of it as gated communities of Gurgaon, in 2024, on a gargantuan scale, if you must!
âUnit' is the unit of currency in this post-apocalyptic netherworld, with grungy gadgets and dusty exteriors. You can spot glimpses of Dune, but more likely, Mad Max, while noticing Handmaid's Tale, with a touch of Transformers, and what is the rebel town of Sambaala, if not a bit like Wakanda; no?
No. All art, indeed visuals, come from other arts/visuals. I find the obsessive reference-pointing rather pointless. Kalki is bulky. In the sense of the weight of its SFX and expectations. It could get buried under it.
The way Ayan Mukerji's Brahmastra did, perhaps - overloaded with sub-plot after sub-plot, or even Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan, that I found incomprehensible, for the lack of pre-access to the original epic. I needed a âkunji' (exam-key).
What the writers laudably do here, instead of creaking under their self-built heaviness is barely let the story get in the way of the spectacle. Keeping it all too simple, stupid!
Or spectacle for spectacle's sake. That works well as you zone out and chill, rather than go "STFU", which happens quite often with attempts like these.
Think again about expectations, since I bought an IMAX ticket for a show that got cancelled, owing to tech reasons at PVR (Jio World, Mumbai). Okay, let me not bore you with deets of my day.
What about the fellow viewer I met at the venue, Usha, who'd first bought IMAX 3D ticket for Kalki, that got downgraded to 2D IMAX, so she picked up another ticket for a regular 2D show, but attempted the (cancelled) IMAX still, and then another regular show, after⦠She was down almost R2,000, without a second of the first day, first show.
I hope she got half her work-day's worth, eventually. There is similarly the sequel lined up of Kalki; seemingly with several set-pieces, that are seriously second to none here, already. I'm looking forward to that. You could, to this, surely.
