Kalki 2898 AD – An Epic Or A One Time Watch?

Kalki 2898 has everything going for it. It has an amazing star cast, a world worth building/exploring, a big budget and tremendous potential.

But did it live up to the huge expectations?

Here is my Kalki 2898 AD Review.

Story

The movie derives its story from the concept of the end of the world, and the saviour’s return.

A common theme across multiple religions in the form of the last incarnation of Lord Vishnu as Kalki, the Second Coming Of Jesus Christ, The Day Of Judgement etc. The story is largely based on the Hindu aspects of the coming of God in Kalyuga.

It starts with the events of Mahabharata, specifically the curse of Ashwatthama, and ends with some major reveals connected to the same. The journey from the first minute to the epic climax has ups and downs, but the story holds everything together pretty well.

The set pieces are brilliantly integrated into the story.

The story shines in the second half, but the first half greatly suffers from poor editing.

Characters

The characters like Ashwatthama, Bujji, Sum-80, Mariam, Bhairava, Commander Manas and Supreme Yaskin are well-written. The story beautifully captures the motivation of each of the characters.

Special mention to the power-packed performance of Amitabh Bachchan as Ashwatthama the soul of this movie. His presence, aura and acting are second to none. He was shown as an 8 feet giant, and his presence was towering. He was the real star of the movie, and delivering such a performance at his age is something only the likes of Big B can do.

Prabhas as Bhairava was good in the action scenes and serious scenes but falters in some of the comedy scenes which looked gimmicky to me.

Bujji the partner in crime was well-voiced, and the emotions came out well. The banters between Bujji and Bhairava were on point.

Sum-80 played by Deepika Padukone, and Mariam played by Shobhana were strong female characters, well written and acted.

Saswata Chatterjee as Commander Manas was good but not amazing, I thought the character could have been written better are more menacing..

Kamal Hassan as Supreme Yaskin has about a couple of minutes role in the whole movie, and that too was created with heavy VFX. But here again, we have a strongly written character with great potential in upcoming movies from the Kalki universe. He did give a strong Dhalsim vibe.

There are some amazing cameos from top names in the Indian Film Industry that the fans would love.

Dubbing

I watched Kalki in Hindi, so I did not have high hopes since unfortunately the dialogues in Telugu or any South Indian language are not usually well adapted for Hindi audiences, Bahubali being an exception.

Prabhas dubbed for himself which I don’t think was a good idea since the character he portrayed could have done well if voiced by a native Hindi speaker such as Sharad Kelkar.

Hindi was the primary language in the world of Kalki. It was funny when white actors delivered dialogues in Hindi, with a strong foreign accent. This was weird considering you would think if Hindi is the language in the last city on earth, set about a thousand years in future, they would have at least lost the accent.

I did not like whoever dubbed Lord Krishna in some scenes. Krishna in every other media has always sounded calm and composed, whereas in the Hindi version, Krishna had a strong baritone and anger in his voice. For the small frame of the actor who portrayed him, it did not sit well.

Special Effects

Overall the VFX of the movie are not bad, but long shots showing dry outer Kashi landscapes can look jarring. The Complex is a visual treat. Even the chambers where the fertile women are kept, and the devices within are very well designed.

The city of Kashi looks amazing in some shots, but subpar in others.

Shambhala was also well done, although could have been better.

I hated the guns both the audio as well as the visual aspects of it. The guns on the Complex side(the evil faction) were still okay, although heavily inspired by Halo. The guns and vehicles on the rebel end though looked extremely cheap. The same is the case for some vehicles which you would expect to be heavy and sturdy but looked like a stage prop.

The young Ashwatthama was all CGI which I thought was not a good move, since among other real actors it looked jarring. They could have easily had some other actors play young Amitabh, the first time I saw his character in the trailer I thought it was being played by Sushant Singh an actor from the Hindi film industry known to play small roles in Bollywood.

Overall it is a visual treat, but some scenes look gimmicky.

Editing

This movie had no reason to be 3 hours long. Especially the first half. Some of the comedy scenes were unnecessarily stretched. Especially the first encounter of Bhairava and other bounty hunters.

The first half could have been a lot shorter had they gotten rid of some bits of scenes from Kashi. The scene with Disha Patani was unnecessary and could have been cut short or removed altogether.

The editing closer to the interval and the second half is on point and well done.

The Kalki Universe

The movie has set an epic world with unlimited possibilities to develop spinoffs or other character stories like stories of Rebels, the backstory of Supreme Yaskin etc. Bhairava & Bujji an Amazon series is a good example of the direction a good spin-off can take.

The world is a tried and tested dystopia done successfully in the past in Hollywood, but rarely done in the Indian Film Industry at this scale. In the world of Kalki the ones with power and living a life of luxury in The Complex, whereas the poor are left to die in the city of Kashi under it. The residents of Kashi can only dream of the Complex, the perfect utopia. This struggle can have many stories yet to be told.

The movie ends on a high note with some character reveals which followers of Indian Mythology could have predicted, but others were unexpected.

The mid-credit reveal from The Complex is epic and sets up a villain which has never been done in past. The future looks great for this universe provided it is handled with the same care as the second half of this movie.

Verdict

Overall I would give this movie 8 out of 10. If I had to only score the second half I would have given it 10 on 10, but the first half dragged too long and was an unnecessary stretch.

This movie is a one-time watch with the Kalki universe having the potential to be the biggest epic fantasy world set in India. I am definitely looking forward to what comes out of this universe in the coming years.

Have you watched the movie yet?

What are your views, do share in the comments section.

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