Director: Nag Ashwin
Writer: Nag Ashwin
Stars: Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan
Synopsis: A modern-day avatar of Vishnu, a Hindu god, who is believed to have descended to earth to protect the world from evil forces.
Describing Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD to a layperson may prove impossible. But there’s a few things one must know before entering the movie. First, it’s the most expensive Indian production of all time, with a reported budget of over ₹600 crore (about $75 million USD). It would be futile to compare this film’s scale to one of its American contemporaries, such as Dune, Star Wars, Mad Max, Blade Runner, and even Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon, because we’d be looking at apples and oranges in how India’s film industry operates versus Hollywood. I always roll my eyes when critics on Film Twitter play ‘gotcha!’ by comparing the budget of an international film to an American one without understanding basic currency rates and how each industry does not function like Hollywood. But I never understand why Americans must always compare a foreign country with theirs.
The good thing is that Ashwin clearly loves these grand-scale sci-fi epics and continuously tips the hat to them throughout his 181-minute runtime. You can point out where his influences come from in a specific scene versus another one plucked out of another film. But it never feels like plagiarism, more like an innate appreciation for the artists who have pioneered science fiction and have inspired a generation of filmmakers to create their own imaginative, lived-in worlds.
The second element one must understand before diving into this movie is that it’s the second installment of a planned cinematic universe of films and television series, following up on the events of the two-episode animated show Bujji & Bhairava, which premiered on Prime Video last May. While some may think you don’t need to watch the series to understand the events of Kalki 2898 AD, crucial information regarding robot Bujji (Keerthy Suresh) and bounty hunter Bhairava (Prabhas) is only accessible in the series.
None of these characters are properly introduced in the film, with their chemistry already established in the show. Yes, Ashwin has decided to make his short animated show an integral part of building his cinematic universe, which is a ballsy move (it wasn’t worked with Marvel, who now have to rebrand their animation and television department to make it less ‘interconnected’) though plans for the franchise’s future seems to hinge on the success of the film.
The other – and most important – thing anyone must understand before seeing the film is that Kalki 2898 AD is a part one. Of course, and like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and the upcoming Wicked, this is not revealed in any of its trailers or marketing (other than the knowledge that it’s part of a cinematic universe). Meaning that a good chunk of its three-hour runtime is dedicated solely to its worldbuilding and the introduction of the central conflict, which involves Bhairava hunting down SUM-80/Sumathi (Deepika Padukone) after escaping an idyllic, pyramidal utopian city known as “The Complex,” ruled by totalitarian God king Supreme Yaskin (Kamal Haasan, bone-chilling in only two scenes).
The reasons why Sumathi is being hunted are best left discovered on your own, but another crucial thing to know is how Ashwin deftly blends grandiose science-fiction ideas, such as the classic utopia/dystopia narrative, which is how he develops the movie’s world before the intermission, with traditional mythmaking as he reinterprets the “Mahabharata.” An opening flashback with a de-aged Amitabh Bachchan gives us a glimpse of how Ashwin will approach the story, making it an essential part of Bhairava’s development within the ‘2898’ futuristic setting.
Perhaps these moments needed more meat around the bone, but how Ashwin operates is enticing enough to make us want more and see the story through its end (a striking hand-drawn animated sequence that chronicles the rise of totalitarianism through the times until its fictitious 2898 is also another superb example of how the filmmaker uses real-life texts and history to root his universe in). It’s also interesting in how, with so many exposition dumps in piecing not only the world of the movie together, but the characters who inhabit it, none of the dialogue actively feel as if the characters are constantly spoon feeding information to the audience. The perfect example of this occurs when Supreme Yaskin is introduced, à la Baron Harkonnen. The scenes are only there to tease what’s to come and show us who the main threat of the franchise will be while also slightly teasing his overarching plan, ‘Project K.’ Although we don’t know what it is, it’s safe to say it isn’t good news.
Yet, none of them feel as if we’re watching a villain explain to the audience what they must understand before going into the sequel. The presence of Kamal Haasan is enough to pique our curiosity, but it’s his magisterial turn with only ten minutes of screentime that makes it so riveting to watch him chew up the exposition he has to deliver on screen. It’s great to see that his virtuosic talents won’t be wasted in subsequent installments, teasing a performance of the ages from an actor who has been at the forefront of some of the best Tamil cinema has to offer through his collaborations with S. Shankar in Indian and Lokesh Kanagaraj in Vikram.
But the picture’s real (rebel) star is Prabhas, giving his best turn since S.S. Rajamouli’s Bahubali: The Conclusion. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen him give a damn, phoning it in with the ridiculously dreadful Adipurush and Prashanth Neel’s headache-inducing eardrum perforating-fest Salaar: Part One – Ceasefire. Prabhas’ stardom was primarily achieved after starring in Rajamouli’s Chatrapathi, to which he achieved mass stardom after leading the Bahubali films. But his post-Rajamouli career has been met with many misses (though I’ll be the only one to defend the sheer rambunctiousness of Sujeeth’s Saaho) and box office duds.
Through the figure of Bhairava, Prabhas reclaims his stardom with an impeccably charming, camera-loving, and ass-kicking turn. The emotional impact has been subdued, but that’s only due to how Ashwin will keep most of his legitimate development (after a shocking cliffhanger reveal) for the sequel. But that doesn’t mean the character isn’t compelling. Far from it, his introduction scene is a particular highlight, with Santhosh Narayanan’s booming BGM (no, really, I think I became deaf after this film) adding the right rhythm to how Prabhas walks close to the camera and decides to prove to everyone who dares threaten him that he can’t lose.
The first fight scene shows how spectacular the action scenes will be, but Ashwin dials it down before the interval to allow the audience to sit in the world he’s created for the film. After the interval, it’s a non-stop, wall-to-wall festival of action, with a desert chase scene that completely blows that twelve-minute set piece in George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga out of the water and a finale so intricate in its visual spectacle it must be seen to be believed. The visual effects feel so meticulously crafted they may very well be the best I’ve seen in any Indian film, which is saying a lot. Indian films are always more reliant on tickling the imagination and being a visual/aural medium, even if their means aren’t as expansive as, say, Hollywood (which I try not to compare it to). But it’s precisely because they don’t have the same means that they’re making their dramas feel larger in scale and scope than other parts of the world.
With cinematographer Djordje Stojiljkovic, Ashwin crafts painterly and lush visuals to envelop us in the desertified city of Kalsi, contrasting it with the idyllic tableaux of The Complex, harkening back to the work of Roger Deakins (whom Stojiljkovic met) in Blade Runner 2049 and Grieg Fraser in Dune. Its use of center framing in its climactic action scene is, of course, plucked out of George Miller’s work, but, again, never in an egregious copy/paste fashion. They continuously wear their influences on their sleeves to elevate the action and put the visual effects on display.
This elegant mix of large-scale science fiction with Indian mythology might have fallen flat at the hands of a less-experienced filmmaker with no vision for what he’s creating, but Ashwin seems to know exactly where he wants to take his franchise and how each scene serves as a builder for what’s to come excitingly and always puts his characters at the forefront of the conflict before tackling anything else (Padukone’s almost silent portrayal of Sumathi will move you to tears). How he interweaves Bhairava’s present-day story through thrilling, mythologically charged flashbacks is such a coup-de-grâce that our five-person audience erupted in total applause, knowing what will come next.
There have been many adaptations and interpretations of the Mahabharata, but Ashwin’s vision could be the most cinematically enthralling yet (until Rajamouli eventually adapts it). However, since the story of Kalki is incomplete, time will tell exactly how his subsequent installments within the cinematic universe will be fleshed out. Still, the movie’s intricate visuals, jaw-dropping action, and elaborate mythmaking will forever change the landscape of Telugu cinema and perhaps Indian cinema as a whole, not only as a pan-Indian mass spectacle but as a worldwide science fiction phenomenon. Watching Kalki 2898 AD, it felt as if I was discovering something new and never-before-realized on screen. That’s enough to keep me watching anything the franchise churns out until whatever Ashwin has in mind for its grand finale, which will likely break the internet as a specific cameo from one of the world’s greatest talents in this movie will.
