Adipurush Review

Adipurush: What's Behind

When Pan India Star Prabhas agreed to sign Adipurush and decided to play the role of Lord Ram, everyone got excited. Expectations soared when director Om Raut of Tanhaji fame, a national award-winning director claimed to he wouldn't have done Adipurush had Prabhas not agreed to do the film. The film happens to be Prabhas' first straight Bollywood film and first mythological film. Prabhas had taken a daring decision to play Lord Ram's role sporting a mustache, unlike earlier stars.

The film's teaser got a huge negative response from all quarters and many politicians and Hindu seers even approached courts seeking a ban on the film. The makers worked hard to get a tremendously positive response for the songs and two trailers. The film's OTT rights have been bagged by Amazon Prime and streaming will be on after eight weeks of the theatrical run. The film is releasing on 16 June and during the past few weeks, a tremendous surge is seen with celebrities promoting it and people thronging the theatres. Let's enter into the spiritual and devotional world of Adipurush to find out what impact it made on movie lovers. 

Adipurush: Story Review

Adipurush's story is inspired by the Hindu epic Ramayan scripted by sage Valmiki. Raghav aka Ram (Prabhas) goes on 14 years exile to fulfill his father Dasarath's promise. His wife Janaki aka Sita (Kriti Sanon) and brother Seshu aka Lakshman (Sunny Singh) follow him. As his exile (Vanvas) is about to end, he receives a shock when Janaki gets disappeared. How Raghav finds Janaki who is  Bajrang aka Hanuman (Devdatta Nage), Lankesh aka Ravan (Saif Ali Khan), his wife Mandodari (Sonal Chauhan), sister Soorpanakha (Tripti Toradmal), brother Vibhishan and son Indrajit (Vatsal Seth) should be found out on the silver screen.

Adipurush: Screenplay Review

Om Raut starts the narration starting with Vanvas. After the pictorial depiction of Raghav going to exile, Saif Ali Khan is introduced as Ravan in a ferocious way. The narration then shifts to the forest where Kriti Sanon is introduced as Sita who is worried about the wellbeing of Ram after Rakshasas attack them with Sunny Singh as Lakshman convincing her. In this way, he kept the interest among movie lovers about the heroic introduction of Prabhas as Raghav.

Prabhas is introduced as Raghav in the most impactful and heroic manner. Till now, Lord Ram has not been introduced in this way by any filmmakers. The narration and screenplay continue to and fro shifting the focus on happenings with Ravan as well as Ram culminating with the kidnapping of Janaki. All these scenes keep the interest and curiosity levels among movie lovers intact though the story is well-known to one and all.

Om Ranut managed to increase the interest levels with the good usage of graphics and VFX blending it effectively with the story. The pre-interval and the interval blocks featuring Prabhas make the adrenaline rush setting the tone and increasing expectations for the second half. The second half boils down to the clash of titans Raghav and Ravan. While Om Raut paid utmost interest in elevating the scenes with the graphics and VFX, he floundered as most of the time, in his bid to concentrate on high-octane action episodes, completed the all-important fight between Lakshman and Indrajit, Vali and Sugriv, Raghav and Kumbhakarn and Raghav and Ravan in a hurried manner. This robbed the movie lovers of the surreal experience of watching the entire Ramayan's Yuddha Kanda on the screen.

He tried to be creative with the story and screenplay to attract Genex movie lovers telling the well-known Ramayan in the most powerful and heroic manner elevating the heroism of Ram blending it with graphics and VFX. To that, Om Raut succeeded to a larger extent. But he failed to give an emotional connection, especially between Raghav and Janaki. A little bit of fine-tuning would have helped in the improved result.

Adipurush: Artists Review

Prabhas played the role of Lord Ram aka Raghav. Those who watched the trailer and teaser expressed doubts as to whether people accept him in the role as he sported a mustache. However, Prabhas did full justice to his role. He slipped into the role effortlessly. He showed expressions and emotions according to the situation and carried the film on his shoulders. His towering screen presence is the biggest asset to Adipurush.

He delivered dialogues in an impactful manner and elevated Om Raut's visualization of Lord Ram in a heroic and action-packed avatar to the next level. He is omnipresent throughout the film and carried the film on his shoulders. He looked realistic as the royal king in exile Lord Ram aka Raghav. His body language and screen presence are near perfect. At times, his dialogues are overboard but he couldn't be faulted for that. He showed the expressions like compassion, courage, anger, kindness, humbleness, and valor on his face.

Kriti Sanon played the role of Goddess Sita aka Janaki. She came up with a singular expression. Though she is ok in her role, she looked like a misfit. She should have come up with a few more emotions to elevate the scenes.

Saif Ali Khan played the role of Lankesh aka Ravan. He looked menacing and ferocious on the screen. He got a good screen presence and performed well. He made a good impact with his expressions and body language. Devdatt Nage as Hanuman is good. He made his presence felt in a few scenes. Ravi Kale's dubbing for Saif Ali Khan gave the required impetus.

Sonal Chauhan got the limited role of Mandodari and the same is the case with Vastal Seth as Indrajit.

Adipurush: Technicians Review

Cinematographer Karthik Palani elevated the scenes with his breathtaking visuals. The VFX and graphics are of top class and are now one of the best. Adipurush visuals are the best in the Indian film industry till now. The 3D impact will wow all giving a new feel to the Ramayan. Songs like Ram Siya Ram, and Jai Shri Ram tuned by Ajay-Atul, and Sachet–Parampara have been chartbusters even before the release of the film. The song's placement is good but director Om Raut failed to increase the emotional and religious fervor with the superhit song Jai Shri Ram in the second half. Had he done so, the impact would have been sensational and tremendous.

Dialogues are quite good and at times powerful giving strong messages to society. The dialogues in the scenes involving Raghav-Lakshman, Raghav-Sabari, Raghav-Vibhishan, Raghav and Hanuman, and Raghav addressing the Vanar Sena are good and thought-provoking. But the depiction of Ravan and the people of his kingdom, and also Vanaras did not attract viewers. The background music of Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara added value to the film. The BGM gave hair-raising experience to the war sequences.  Apurva Motiwale Sahai and Ashish Mhatre's editing could have been better, especially in the second half. The costumes are good but they did not suit the Ravan and the Lanka people. They looked out of sync with the story. Even the extravagant depiction of Lanka looked like something similar to that of the Greek or Roman Kingdom rather than the kingdom of Lanka. Those present in the kingdom looked like men from Planet of Apes and Thor and other Hollywood films. Production values of UV Creations, T-Series Films, and Retrophiles are outstanding.

Adipurush: Advantages

• Prabhas
• Some Episodes
• Cinematography
• BGM

Adipurush: Disadvantages

• Cinematic Liberty
• Missing Emotional Connectivity
• Ravan characterization
• Few Dragged Scenes
• Unimpressive Acrs and VFX

Adipurush (2023) Movie: Rating Analysis

Altogether, Adipurush is the modern version of Ram's valor in Ramayan. Om Raut embarked on a mission to enthrall Genex viewers by retelling Ram's valor and virtue in Ramayan in a modern way by blending it with special effects like VFX and Graphics. He had taken a few cinematic liberties but it is fine as long as the message is driven. Everyone knows that if Ramayan is told in the old-fashioned manner Genex kids and the current generation will be bored. In that way, his effort should be applauded. But for all his efforts, he missed the emotional connectivity in the narration by paying more attention to the graphics and VFX.

He came up with an interesting story and with decent screenplay most of the time, he emerged successful most at times. Few sections and those obsessed with games like PubG will be connected to it, but it has to be seen how others will receive it. At times one gets a feeling that they are watching some caricatures and creatures out of the planet.  A little bit of fine-tuning here and there and the apt usage of the chartbuster songs Jai Shri Ram and Ram Siya Ram would have powered Adipurush to another level. Considering all these elements, Cinejosh goes with a 2.5 Rating for Adipurush.