I really tried my best to refrain from writing a review for Brahmastra because I wasn’t sure if it warranted a review. But I’ve been having sleepless nights of depriving the world of my gyaan on this movie that had so much gyaan in it that by the end of the movie you question yourself whether you actually had any gyaan in you in the first place to have chosen to watch this movie despite reading bad reviews. But this movie taught me a big lesson. Always.. ALWAYS trust reviews from fellow brethren!
Honestly, the trailer itself didn’t intrigue me much, but unfortunately I got to know that SRK is playing a cameo. And the rest is history! I got my son excited by telling him that the movie has action and superpowers like the Avengers. Next, I just casually told my mom that there’s Amitabh Bachchan in it. Clickbait! Her love for Amitabh Bachchan is even greater than my love for SRK. She refers to him as Amit Ji!
So the fan girls and the kiddo whose mom played mind games with him were ready for the show! My husband never comes along for a Hindi movie, so I didn’t even try. The last Hindi movie he saw with me in the theatres was Ra.One. Yes, I scarred him for life!
So with the popcorn and drinks set, we sat excited, and the movie began.
Shahrukh Khan comes right in the beginning and his cameo as the scientist Mohan Bhargav (Swades) was awesome. His comic timing and screen presence really was a promising start. But just as you get used to the promising start, you see Mouni Roy entering and just like that SRK’s cameo ends! And then the mélange of all the mythological series you have seen as a child in Doordarshan comes alive.
Mouni Roy looks like she accidentally stepped out of the sets of Chandrakantha and walked into the sets of Brahmastra (90’s kids would know what I’m talking about). The war between the good and evil looks good with top notch VFX, but 15 minutes into the film and you’ll be like, “Okay, your VFX is good, I agree. But please stop!” You know how sometimes you accidentally spill coffee over your laptop and then everything ceases to work? Brahmastra was something like that. Someone accidentally spilled the VFX cup over the editing table and so it lands up in every nook and corner and then after a period of time it just fails to impress the audience. I’m a person with migraine and the movie seriously gave me a bad headache!
Well now let’s come to the story. Anybody who has read/seen Harry Potter will almost immediately see how Brahmastra is so heavily influenced by it. The orphan kid, raised elsewhere, is protected in anonymity, but has superpowers. The funniest part is Shiva knows since childhood that fire cannot harm him, but he’s never bothered by it and also never thinks that this could actually be a superpower.
And then begins the final war, where astras are used on each other and I’m kidding you not, it reminded me of Mahabharat where two astras are shot, they meet mid-air and bombard, and it results in fireworks and lights! We are in 2020, the director Ayaan Mukherjee is a young guy and he still didn’t feel all of this is outdated!
Last Christmas, another Indian superhero movie came out with a far lesser budget, Minnal Murali. A regional movie made such an impact nationwide because of its script brilliance, amazing VFX that the present generation could relate to and amazing actors.
In all fairness, Brahmastra has a good lineup of actors. Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Amitabh Bachchan. But it must take some serious talent to have even Amitabh Bachchan look so unappealing on screen! But yes, both Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt looked like a dream! Such a beautiful couple!
But unfortunately, that’s all there is to Brahmastra; good looking actors. Pritam’s music is not impressive either.
I know, a movie, be it small or big, is a lot of hard work and so I hardly write bad reviews and dismiss a movie completely. But when you’re making a movie this big, you need to shoulder the responsibility of making it worth the audience’s time. Sorry, Brahmastra is unimpressive and disappointing!