Adipurush: Shaken and Stirred

 A lot has been perceived, heard, read and seen about this new movie, ‘Adipurush’. It claims to be based on the Hindu epic, Ramayan. It seems that the knowledge of the common man is much more advanced than the pre-production research of their entire team. Disclaimer: If you are keen on watching this movie, do go to be baffled at the perceived ignorance of the makers who decided to spend such a huge budget on this ‘magna’ piece of ‘art’ and managed to come up with something so ridiculous.

Where do I begin? The movie is wrong on so many levels.

The CGI and VFX is so lame, that it almost appears that you are in an amateur video game throughout. In such modern times, when we have all the budget and all the super techniques available at out fingertips, we still miss the Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan’s ‘trick photography’, as we used to call it, when we were growing up. The movie failed, big time, to impress at the techno level.

Next comes the distortion of facts. I understand that it is impossible to squeeze an entire epic in 3 hours, but there are some facts and sub-plots which are crucial to the story. And especially when we choose such a subject, we need to be wary of them.

Ramji and His army were shown wearing leather costumes while Ravan was clad in a t-shirt. Ravan, here, had an unsettling obsession with bats. Prince Indrajeet was shown as a desi version of The Flash, tattooed all over. There was an actual fist-fight between Ram and Ravan, where quite a few punches landed on Lord Ram. Hanumanji was also shown fighting Ravan’s pet, a monstrous weird-looking bird(?)/bat(?)/transport(?).

There is an actual scene where Lord Ram knee-slided on the battle-field as if he had just scored a goal in football! Hare Ram! Not sure if I am ignorant here, but I was surprised to see Vibhishan’s wife as the official doctor(vaidya) of Camp Ram. Was it Chudi or Chudamani? Some depictions are hard to digest. Even the mere mention of Bharatji, Nal-Neel, Kevat, Agni-pariksha, etc, were conspicuously missing. The makers did not care about the facts, evidently.

The boon by Lord Brahma, Ravan’s vulnerability being present in his navel, Jataayu, Shabri… were all mis-represented for no apparent reason. What was the deal with the eerie spell on Sitaji during her abduction?

An eternal full moon kept hanging in the sky, from the beginning till the end. There was Sitaji’s pearl necklace which she had removed and thrown during her abduction scene, but it mysteriously kept reappearing and disappearing from around her neck during the later parts of the movie. Summarising, the detailing has gone for a toss, throughout, in the name of making the movie look ‘appealing’!

The movie disappoints at places where one feels that a few unimportant scenes could have been replaced by more meaningful insights. One such unnecessary scene was a straight-up copy from the Harry Potter series. The one with uncanny resemblance to dementors and Death-eaters, right at the beginning. What in Merlin’s name was that about?

The finale battle scene was complete ‘Marvel’isation, with hints of Star Wars, Planet Of The Apes, et al. It is done in absolute poor taste. It felt like an extension of the recent period movies that we have seen. I can best describe it as Mughals fighting against animated characters, trying to protect their fort.

Even with all the animation put to use, we miss the charm of our beloved characters. They just added a touch of Bollywood to it, for the sake of it. Prabhas lacked grace and poise. He was walking around like Baahubali, only. Kriti was ok. The other characters were worse. The casting was majorly flawed. Probably one of the reasons was that, in comparison with Ramanand Sagar’s version, may be all the characters had really big shoes to fill in?! Most of the other characters were computer-generated and still failed to demand our affection!

Ravan also had his own style of walking like our dear filmy character, Munna Bhai. You are left wondering how Saif missed to accomplish what Arvind Trivedi managed with such affable panache?! Ravan’s characterisation in the movie is very questionable. He is shown as a conflicting personality. He is shown having literal group discussions amongst his ten heads. The makers failed to show it as funny, if that was their intention. It was pathetic. Ravan was a very learned personality. Once again, the movie showed lack of character development, like in the case of Ram, Vibhishan, Hanuman, Lakshman, etc.

I did not understand the obsession to use names such as Raghav, Jaanki, Shesh(for Sheshnaag) and Bajrang and consciously avoiding Ram, Sita, Lakshman and Hanuman. Lakshman Rekha is called Satya Rekha. What was the whole point of this conspicuous choice of names? To avoid anybody suing them later on…? No other apparent reason!

The look and layout of Lanka was another major disappointment. It could have been so grand. It appeared mostly sad and gloomy, from beginning to end. I understand the analogy of the grey shades but it wasn’t an appealing representation. There was no hint of ‘Sone ki Lanka’.

Last but not the least, here is something for you all to ponder upon… is ‘Kalyug ki Ramayan’ justification enough to include ‘tapori’ dialogues in a mythological epic drama?

Not to forget the use of Urdu words, too.

Read at your own risk! I survived them but I am still in shock.

1. Yeh toh fusaddi hain!

2. Kaal ke liye kaalin bichhaya hain.

3. Chhalaang lagaa Bajrang!

4. Yeh teri Bua ka bageecha hain jo hawaa khaane aa gaya? (Said to Hanumanji when he visits Ashok Vaatika to meet Goddess Sita.)

5. … haath dho baithega. Haath nahi dhaakde ko dhouunga.

6. Kapda tere baap ka, Tael tere baap ka, aag tere baap ki aur jalegi bhi tere baap ki(Actually spoken by Hanuman)

7. (When asked to Hanumanji as to what He did in Lanka): Bol diya, Jo hamaari behno ko haath lagaayenge, hum unki Lanka lagaa denge.

8. Aaj khadaa hain, kal leta hua milega.

9. Ab chhote ka khel khatam, bade bhaiyya, ab apna tamasha samet.

10. Mere ek sapole (read: Naagpaash) ne tere sheshnaag ko lambaa kar diya.

11. Bandar junglee hain par tu toh samajhdaar ban.

12. Chal nikal.

13. Kya zaroorat thi iss naatak ki. (Said by Lord Ram to Lord Hanuman)

No amount of justification can explain why the dialogue writer decided to touch upon the sentiments of the audience by making its characters sound way too vernacular and slang and outrightly down-market. It is to the point of being absolutely unacceptable. I had dragged my entire family to watch ‘Ramji ki movie’. My children have grown up reading Greek and Norse mythology and the likes. They haven’t watched too much of Bollywood. They are the Insta and Snap-chat Gen. But they are aware of our conversational language. And even they were taken aback at how colloquial and outrageous it all sounded.

We must change with times. We must go with the flow. We must be ready to accept new things as we move on in life. Adipurush tests our patience with all of this and more. Sorry but if they were planning to twist the story and characters for suiting to the next generation, they have failed miserably. Such adaptations must be best left to the subject-matter experts. One cannot justify the disregard to crucial sub-plots or meaningful layers of characterisations.

Man of the hour, the director, is not going to be left off the hook anytime soon. The cast and crew better be aware of what a turbulence they have created in our Land Of Rich Culture. It is literally their own version of the epic, which is very appalling and cringe-worthy. 

All I can say is, Jai Shri Ram! This was visibly missing from the war cries. It was there subtly played in the background, at times. Otherwise all the war scenes were overpowered by this new trend of ‘Jahaan Raghav, Wahaan Vijay’… it failed to have any emotional impact, though.

Adipurush is a disaster. At all levels. Research, Costumes, Hairstyles, Music, Special Effects, Dialogues, Cinematography, Screenplay…. abysmally dismal. Not a single saving grace. Felt like it is made by Adimaanav. Time and again, we tend to long for the beauty and simplicity of Ramanand Sagar’s version.

Need to detox now. Any recommendations?😅