Brahmastra Movie Review: Brahmastra starring Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor is out today. Directed by Ayan Mukherjee, it also stars Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna Akkineni and Mouni Roy in lead roles. Here is our review of the highly anticipated film.
For a generation that grew up with ideas of superheroes saving the world — one Marvel and DC movie at a time — Brahamstra is pretty much a welcome move from Bollywood. Ayan Mukherjee creates a spectacle so aesthetically pleasing that for viewers, the flaws in his storytelling might just be something they could leave aside to enjoy over 166 minutes of beautiful visuals, visually stunning scenes and enjoyable music. It’s a movie that has a very simplistic and clean message at its core and a comic book-style storytelling on screen.
Before delving into the film, it is important to understand what Brahmastra represents. While the trailer speaks for itself, here’s a quick cheat sheet to get the idea behind Astraverse, India’s first cinematic universe. The Astraverse is essentially an ode to the higher powers (jal, vaayu and agni) that are believed to be the reason for the existence of life. All forces are harnessed in one way or another to asters or weapons of light. The Brahmastra as a whole is the story of the asters (borrowed from Hindu mythology) and the superheroes who wield them and make up the Brahmansha. The group that prays to the supreme deity Brahma seeks to protect the world from all darkness and protect its inherent light.
The main astras (weapons) in the film are nandi astra (possessing the strength equivalent to a thousand bulls), jalastra (possessing the power of water), vanarastra (possessing the strength equivalent to an army of monkeys), agniastra (possessing the strength of fire) prabhastra and pavanastra (possessing wind power). But above all of them is a force that puts things in perspective, wins against all odds, and is said to win the battle every time – love.
Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) is a carefree DJ who dances all his life with his friends. Its principle is simple – to find light even in the darkest moments. One day he spots Isha (Alia Bhatt) at a celebratory event and it’s love at first sight. A little exchange and Shiva and Isha enter each other. But how little do they know what life has in store for them? Somewhere else we are told how the Brahmastra, the most powerful weapon of God, was divided into three parts in order to keep the peace and prevent any chaos in the world. Each of the three parts is guarded by a key character from the forces of Junun (Muni Roy) and her two assistants Raftaar and Zora. How Shiva is connected to all of this is the crux of the story.
The audience goes through the story the way its main characters do: the more secrets Isha learns about Shiva, the more we know about him, and the more Shiva knows about what is happening in the universe, the more we understand it.
The plot, however, is not without flaws, and this is one of the film’s weakest points. The story has many elements of potential, but what it focuses on makes the film underwhelming. At some points, the film seems primitive and overly simplistic, almost to the point where it tells the audience why a certain force doesn’t work on the enemy, instead of giving the audience a brainwash. Dialogues seem simple and patchy for the most part. The scale is great, but the story doesn’t live up to it, and that’s the most disappointing part.
The first half feels a bit drawn out and slow, but the second half picks up the pace. The film, especially in the second half, really promises to deliver great visuals on screen. Full-bodied stunt sequences make for some of the film’s best moments. This is an ambitious storytelling using technology, and for that the team deserves credit.
Interestingly, the film is set during the Dussehra and Diwali (festival of light) festivals, which gives the makers ample opportunity to bring in all the beauty of love and light, and they don’t disappoint! The film is also accompanied by impressive music, and some of its tracks grow on you throughout the entire viewing. It is noteworthy that the song complements the story and does not seem out of place.
Ranbir is perfect for the role of Shiva. The actor puts on a serious performance as he fights to discover the secrets of his past, the mysteries of his present, and the hope of his future. He is the perfect embodiment of what superheroes stand for – rise against the odds. Alia Bhatt as Isha delivers another memorable performance. As Isha, she portrays her character with grace and is honest in her character arc. Together, Alia and Ranbir, for the most part, shine brightly with their chemistry. But the dialogue makes some of their scenes seem exhaustive and results in inconsistent chemistry. And someone may have questions about how it all starts for two.
Amitabh Bachchan as Raghu Guru ji puts on a wise show (although I wish there were more details on his character), while Nagarjuna Akkineni as Anish Shetty wields a nandi aster and strikes. Mouni Roy gets one of her most iconic roles as Junoon and she gives her credit. Look for a special cameo that outshines the show!
Overall, Brahmastra is an experience that works for the visuals, but definitely not for the story. It’s an ambitious film with love and light at its core, and it’s clear the director has charted multiple territories, from the world of Harry Potter to Hindu mythology, visual storytelling, and more. This is a movie for romantics that deserves the theatrical experience, thanks in large part to the effort that went into making it.
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Nagarjuna Akkineni
DIRECTOR – Ayan Mukerji
A great superhero movie needs two main components: first, visual magic that goes beyond mere attention-grabbing and also contains great ideas (for example, Superman freezes a lake with his breath and transports it to a raging hell where he puts out a fire). just letting the lake melt over him); secondly, emotional resonance.
The new Hindi film “Brahmastra: Part One – Shiva” hits the bull’s-eye with 0.5 out of 2 of those elements. On the optical front, he’s great, but he lacks great ideas. He also lacks depth of feeling.
Long before American cinema brought people with superpowers to the screen, ancient Indian mythology abounded with fantasy sagas far beyond anything Hollywood had ever imagined. In this context, Hanuman immediately comes to mind, especially the story of his flight from the Himalayas to Lanka with a whole mountain in the palm of his hand to deliver the healing, saving herb Sanjivani to the place where Lakshman was dying. . This is just one of a million stories that Ayan Mukherjee could get for Brahmastra. Instead, the writer-director selected figures from Indian Hindu mythmaking, added details from the world of Harry Potter, packaged them with trappings similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and DC comics, with bits of Sanskrit thrown in.
This is fair enough. There is no rule saying that we should limit ourselves to borrowing from domestic cinema and literature, and it would be all right if Brahmastra took these ingredients further and achieved something special by cooking them together. Is not.
The protagonist of Brahmastra is a DJ named Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) who has a secret. Shiva is an orphan. He has a relationship with fire that he cannot understand – he does not burn it. He meets Isha (Alia Bhatt). They fall in love. The two embark on a journey to find out what is behind the visions that Shiva saw.
Parallel to this, a triumvirate of modern sages fight to prevent the broken parts of divine weapons from being combined with such power that their misuse could have disastrous consequences for humanity. This trio is played by Shah Rukh Khan, Nagarjuna Akkineni and Amitabh Bachchan.
Each of the positive characters in this film has a characteristic power or astra (weapon) taken from nature (water, fire, air, etc.) or from essence in Hindu traditions (eg Hanuman and Bull Nandi).
There’s a lot to play with for creatives here, but the Brahmastra team, which was produced by Karan Johar and Ranbir himself in particular, seemed to settle early on with the very idea of an Indian superhero, with their budget for technical effects. and megawatt cast.
The first minutes of the film are full of vitality as the charismatic Shah Rukh (playing a scientist named Mohan Bhargava, in a clever allusion to his character from Swades) battles the agents of the cosmos’ main villain, followed by a lively song and dance representing Shiva. audience. The energy plummets almost immediately during the long, apparently boring face-to-face encounter between Shiva and Isha. After that, he only appears a couple of times in this 2-hour and 40-minute film.
Given that Ayan Mukerji gave us Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, it’s surprising that writing a romance between the protagonists of Brahmastra is cold. They fall in love with each other at the snap of a finger and in the blink of an eye – not just infatuated with each other, but so deeply devoted to each other that she nonchalantly follows him around the country, and both risk their lives for each other. When they repeatedly state their mutual feelings, it seems terribly unconvincing. Ranbir has more chemistry with Big B’s Guru who appears in the second half, no doubt because Alia’s Isha is much more subtly characterized than Guru.
Brahmastra movie review Beautiful people, screaming but repetitive SFX, boring, oh such boring nonsense
In the absence of appropriate human equations, all talk of the aster and death in the Brahmastra sounds like gibberish, which becomes extremely boring after a while. Even pompous, because everything is made to sound grandiose and glorious.
Worse, however, is the use of effects in the film. Mythical images at first inspire awe. Gradually, however, their impact weakens under the weight of repetition and overextension. Case in point: once Shiva begins to hone his skills with fire, we see him experiment with fireballs in his hands and flames emanating from his palms. Then we are again shown these fireballs and fire bands. And then again. And then… it stops being interesting.
The Brahmastra is also a reminder that Bollywood needs to rethink some formulas before bringing them to 3D. The artists are hip-pushing each other and the screen is a dance move frequented by Hindi film choreographers, but in the Brahmastra opening song, when the hero takes this standard step, it’s startling – and not in a good way – for a few seconds, because it’s in 3D.
A car chase involving Shiva and Isha in the mountains causes some tension. The only other time the Brahmastra is animated is in the second half of the Om Deva Deva song. Pritam’s captivating melody, musical arrangements, visuals and Ranbir’s captivating trance acting are electrifying in this piece.
Ranbir and Alia look great in everything but fail to rise above a weak script. The letter is unfair, in particular to Aliya.
SRK is the brightest of sages. His role is very clearly framed and positioned as episodic. Of the three, Nagarjuna’s role is the most poorly written, and it’s hard to see why a star of his stature signed on to play it. Guru Amitabha is a full-fledged supporting role. The presence of a veteran star on the screen makes his scenes sublime in many ways, but there are a few places where I struggled to decipher his dialogue.
Mouni Roy allows her character Junun to devour her and is the only actor in the film who gives the impression that she was born for fantasy and superhero films.
Brahmastra movie review Beautiful people, screaming but repetitive SFX, boring, oh such boring nonsense
All this made me curious about the origin story of Shiva and the main antagonist Dev, but since Brahmastra is stretched into a trilogy, in the first part we will hear only a piece of both. Although Shiva is named after the most intriguing of the three deities of the Hindu Holy Trinity, his origin seems to have been inspired by Harry Potter. So does Dev, judging by a passing description of him as “not quite alive, but not dead either, he just is”, much like Voldemort after his apocalyptic, heartbreaking attack on baby Harry.
A few months ago, the Malayalam film industry released “Minnal Murali” which didn’t claim to be anything other than a desi take on American superhero cinema. The genius of the film directed by Basil Joseph was that, despite this, he told a deeply human story, rooted entirely in southern India and Malayali culture. Brahmastra is superficial in its Hinduism, in the MCU, in Potter, in Bollywood and in humanity.
One Bollywood trope is not forgotten. At the climax, the awakening of a gigantic cosmic force has a magical effect, mysteriously ripping Ranbir’s shirt off his body and giving us several minutes of his naked, well-sculpted, muscular torso. No complaints, but it was fun.
Brahmastra Movie Review and Rating!
Release Date : 9 September 2022
Starring : Amitabh Bachchan , Ranbir Kapoor , Alia Bhatt , Mouni Roy , Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Music Director: Pritam
Cinematography: V. Manikandan, Pankaj Kumar , Sudeep Chatterjee , Vikash Nowlakha ,Patrick Duroux
Producer: Karan Johar , Apoorva Mehta , Namit Malhotra , Ranbir Kapoor , Marijke Desouza , Ayan Mukerji
Banner : Star Studios , Dharma Productions , Prime Focus
Brahmastra, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt and directed by Ayan Mukherjee, was released simultaneously in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Let’s see how it fares.
Story: Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor), a pub DJ, falls in love with Isha (Alia Bhatt) at first sight. In the end, love blossoms between them, and in parallel, Shiva’s connection with Agnystra, the element of fire, will be demonstrated. Why is Shiva so attached to fire? How are the brahmin protectors Guruji, Anish and the roles of scholars played by Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna and Shah Rukh Khan related to Shiva’s past? Being the guardians of Prabhastra, Nandi Astra and Vanarastra respectively, as the trio will help Shiva in this to find the whereabouts of his parents, forms the main USB of the first part of Brahmastra.
Performance: Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt as the lead couple are adorable on screen and tried to carry everything on their shoulders with their performance. While Ranbir Kapoor tried his best, Alia also managed to impress with her acting.
Legendary actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna and Shah Rukh Khan are doing great in their extended key cameo roles. Mouni Roy goes well with her performance as the evil lady.
The other stuffing artists and the children who played the key roles fit their roles.
Technical Details: The graphic and visual effects work done for this mega-budget film is surprisingly poor and unimpressive.
The songs in the film are heard on the screen, but the background music is a total disappointment. Editing Prakash Kurup’s work is just fine.
The cinematic work done by several photographers is adequate. The dialogues in the Telugu version are good, as is the dubbing. The production figures for this stellar project are in order.
Analysis: Director Ayan Mukherjee’s idea of choosing the Astraverse concept is good, and his work is visible on screen. Besides, there is nothing spectacular about the Brahmastra. Ayan would have focused on writing as the film also lacks strong emotion.
While the performance in the first half is decent with a good sequence of intervals, the entire second half is rushed and has scenes with jerky narration. The length of the film is also a disadvantage of the film as at some point the audience feels like they are watching an ignorant film.
To sum it up, Brahmastra is a fantasy adventure with an interesting storyline but diluted with a weak script and an uninteresting script. If the director had focused on scene order and performance rather than wasting time overusing visual effects, the result would have been much better.
Verdict: Weak presentation!
Rating: 2/5
Brahmastra Part One: Shiva
Hindi (Theatres)
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy
Rating: 2.5/5
Brahmastra is basically a superhero movie and let’s start this review with a famous quote from another superhero movie. “Expect disappointment and you’ll never be truly disappointed,” said Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson, Spider-Man’s girlfriend, in the latest installment in the No Way Home franchise.
Bollywood’s reputation has faltered this year, and it’s unwise to place high hopes on hyped Hindi films. With this kind of thinking, I didn’t find Brahmastra Part One: Shiva unbearable. But Ayan Mukherjee’s dream project, while ambitious, has all the hallmarks of an average Bollywood film: star-focused and emotionally pretentious.
In the first part of the Astravers trilogy, Ranbir Kapoor plays Shiva, a DJ who falls in love with Isha (Alia Bhatt). We soon see Shiva being haunted by the images he sees when he closes his eyes. He is shown to be immune to fire.
He suspects he has superpowers. An encounter with Guruji (Amitabh Bachchan) after a couple of life-threatening events places Shiva in the secret world of the Brahmansh, guarding the Astras (supernatural, energy-radiant weapons).
The weapon of Brahmastra, disassembled into three parts, is the mother of all Astras. The last time he was active, Brahmastra shook the world. But a group of evil forces led by Junun (Muni Roy) is trying to activate the Brahmastra again.
Now there is no doubt that Ayan Mukherjee understands that incredible stories rely on spectacular visuals. The Brahmastra is full of them. The VFX is amazing and takes us completely into the universe of the movie. The two long action scenes – one with a pre-cut car chase and a pre-climactic cut – are well thought out and amazingly choreographed.
But Brahmastra does not offer a useful experience because it forgets about other key elements needed to create a fantasy world. He suffers from an overabundance of information about the Astraverse. The pivotal scene in which the Guru tells Shiva of his powers can put you to sleep with verbose details.
There are references to the Avengers in the film, which reveled in the idea of a squad of superheroes fighting villains. But Ayan Mukherjee is unlikely to establish other Brahmanshi characters besides Shiva and Guruji. We can only guess about the backstory of these people, who are nothing more than central characters.
In films of this genre, the dialogue must match the physique of the superhero. But Brahmastra has tame and stupid dialogues. These further spoils the poorly written love story, which is the film’s biggest problem.
It’s okay to go all out and make a visually stunning film without focusing on emotion. But Brahmastra emphasizes that “love” is the greatest weapon, and yet he has a love story that is hard to root for. Mukherjee believes in eternal love at first sight and in signs that the rich fall in love with the poor. This shows that it doesn’t matter if you’re filming a real couple if you’re not writing an organic love story.
Ranbir is superior to the rest. He’s great as this vulnerable orphan, curious about his past and excited about his newfound powers. Aliya tries her best to uplift her image of a damsel in distress. It’s hard to know if Mouni Roy is really terrible or if her face just suits such characters. Shah Rukh Khan (as a scientist) and Nagarjuna (as an artist) are menacing in their cameos.
Brahmastra is a popcorn movie that makes you admire your actions. Other than that, Bollywood looks like the eldest kid fighting for good grades in the family (film industry). In this context, it’s an encouraging improvement over the spoiled brat, but he can do better.
