Adipurush has been seeing a lot of hype, all thanks to the story the film is telling. Ramayana is an epic that’s threaded in the minds and hearts of every Indian. So, when a big-budget movie of the epic was announced, people were understandably excited. This Om Raut movie stars Prabhas as Raghava, Kriti Sanon as Janaki, Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh, Sunny Singh as Lakshmana, and Devdatta Nage as Bajrangi. Everyone knows the story of Ramayana, but what the audience was looking forward to was the treatment of the story in Adipurush.

A visual disaster with much worse writing

To say Adipurush is visually a mess is an understatement. After receiving flak for the poor VFX when the movie’s first trailer was released, one would think they would have done a better job after being forced back to the drawing board. But the end result is no improvement. There are creatures straight out of fantasy movies and shows like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter in Adipurush. And honestly, their existence in the movie makes no sense.

The screenplay and dialogues of the movie are also quite poorly done. When telling a story like Ramayana, you expect the storyteller to maintain the sanctity of the source material. While most adaptations of epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana use original and complex Hindi words, Adipurush doesn’t. It would be completely acceptable if they had just simplified the language, but they’ve made it sound like Ramayana was written in 2022 by a teenager. Some of the dialogues in the movie are “Tere bua ka bageecha hai?“, “Marega bete“, “Haath nahi, main Thaakde ko hi tod dunga” or the most epic “Jali na?… Kapda tere baap ka, tel tere baap ka, aag bhi tere baap ki. Toh jalegi bhi tere baap ki.”

How does this sound like something a character in an epic like Ramayana would say?

It lacks the complexity of Ramayana

Ramayana is an intricate story with complex characters. Adipurush, unfortunately, is filled with one-dimensional characters in whom you have no emotional investment. In the original epic, Rama was a kind, compassionate, and intelligent prince, while Sita was loyal, courageous, and dedicated. Ravana too was a great scholar, a capable ruler, and a devout follower of Lord Shiva. Adipurush, though, doesn’t focus on any of these characteristics. Lankesh is reduced to only a worshipper of Lord Shiva and the abductor of Sita. He is a demon in every sense of the word – from the way he looks to the way he behaves, there’s nothing beyond a ruthless and cruel demon.

Kriti Sanon’s Janaki hardly has a role to play. Janaki was a woman of substance, but Sanon’s character is a mere spectator and nothing more. Raghava had more roles than just a devout husband who fought Lankesh to free his beloved wife. Yet, in Adipurush, Prabhas’ Raghava is limited to just the role of a husband.

Adipurush‘s greatest lacking is that it is not faithful to the source material. Ravana’s Lanka was a prosperous kingdom, unlike the dark, futuristic Lanka shown in the movie. In an attempt to modernise the film to cater to the audience, the movie has lost the essence of Ramayana. You have skull-faced dementor-like creatures attacking Raghava, Lakshmana, and Janaki, a skeletal dragon-like creature that Lankesh rides, trolls, goblins, a whole lot of snakes, and every other animal they could possibly think of.

There really is no redeeming factor in the movie. The actors have no screen presence, the dialogues are crass, and the visuals are something out of a badly-written dystopian series. Instead of adapting an epic to the screen, the makers have made an emo-Ramayana for the audience. Despite being based on a world that was bright and lively, Adipurush is just too dark and dead.

Can you watch Adipurush with your family?: Of course, you can. But watch it at your own risk.

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