A dense and action-packed dystopian Tollywood epic

Nobody makes action films like South Indian directors.

This statement, thankfully, needs no further justification after the global success of RRR, a fever that will no doubt fuel the release of Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD. The film seamlessly blends the best inspirations from science fiction, fantasy and Hindu epics and is a stunning cinematic experience – even if that experience drags towards the end.

We begin in the age of the “Mahabharat,” where Ashwatthama (a frighteningly rejuvenated Amitabh Bachchan) is called upon by Krishna (Krishnakumar, voiced by Arjun Das) to escort Vishnu’s final avatar, Kalki, to safety, whenever that day may come. Six thousand years later, the time has come, and the city of Kashi is the last vestige of civilization on the planet. Everyone is hungry, poor, and fighting for resources—all except those who live in the complex, a giant inverted pyramid that hovers above the city and is ruled by a “god” called the Supreme (Kamal Haasan), who maintains his life force with the help of a serum forcibly extracted from the wombs of fertile women (all of whom look visibly pregnant, even if the details of what is actually growing inside them remain a matter of great mystery and confusion).

There is more.

In The Complex, one woman stays pregnant longer than anyone else, making her both a miracle and a target. Her name is SUM-80 – though she is later known as Sumathi – and she is played by Deepika Padukone. The Supreme stays inside, protected, and sends a Commander (Saswata Chatterjee) to enforce his order in the world. On the streets of Kashi, restless fighter Bhairava (Prabhas) dreams of entering the complex once he has amassed a million credits. And in the shadows of Kashi, a young girl comes into possession of Ashwatthama’s ancient relic and awakens it after millennia.

Despite the dense narrative, “Kalki” is easy to follow and even easier to understand. The world-building story benefits from the years Ashwin has invested in this project, but individual storylines run disjointed for too long and lose momentum as soon as they converge. Despite the puranaAlthough the opening of “Kalki” consists of an info dump from the time of Hinduism (ancient Hindu texts), it takes its time to present the bigger picture and fills up the 170 minutes running time in between.

Admittedly, the fillers are often hugely entertaining. Prabhas’ intro alone is full of humor and fight flair, as is his de facto partner in the film, an adorable little robot named Buji (voice: Keerthy Suresh). Despite a satisfactory performance, the actor would be even better if he didn’t homogenously growl every line of the ADR, but that problem is hardly unique to “Kalki.” Bhairava has the best himbo energy of any action hero this side of “Thor: Ragnarok” (yes, I know “Love and Thunder”), so that’s more than welcome.

Otherwise, the film does a good job of portraying its female cast, save for an almost comically underused Disha Pathani, who appears as a muscle-bound chick with hair (great abs and great hair) and then disappears without a trace within the first hour. Padukone is relegated to a damsel in distress, a waste of the action skills she showed in Pathaan, but she’s also probably the mother of Vishnu’s avatar, so she can rest for a moment. Shobana’s Mariam is a wise, calm leader who runs the secret sanctuary of Shambala, and the film’s MVP has to be Kyra (Anna Ben), a fierce rebel who would do anything to keep Sumathi safe.

The most exciting action scenes are when Bhairava uses replicas of himself to distract his opponents, a chase in futuristic vehicles and every time Bachchan gets involved because Ashwatthama is said to be eight feet tall (there is even a brief scene with fake lightsabers). The much-acclaimed visual effects live up to their promise, thanks to a vibrant palette of cityscapes, future technology and explosions. The visual effects only falter when the rejuvenated Bachchan tries to speak dialogue. There is a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s David that gets knocked over, which would no longer make sense if I put it in context. At a reported $75 million, it is India’s most expensive film to date.

Unfortunately, though this will no doubt vary, there’s a new fight scene every three minutes or so, and the scenes, even if they’re fun in a packed theater, blur into one another. The entire film runs at 110% with no breaks, and the end result feels static because it’s so consistently heightened in every element: music, sound, editing, and more. Every break from the action is spent on plot rather than character, resulting in far too many two-dimensional figures in what should otherwise be a larger-than-life epic (remember: “RRR” spent a lot of time building up the relationship between its two leads so that their later fights actually carry weight). The chase takes place in the second hour, which makes the final act move at a significantly slower pace despite how intertwined our stories are.

Most of these criticisms are common within the genre and are easily forgiven when a film has something that “Kalki” doesn’t: a dazzling soundtrack. Dissonant clips are cut together for Prabhas’ first fight and then scene after scene throughout the film (including a new original by Diljit Dosanjh, referred to simply as “Punjabi Song” in the English subtitles). Later sequences feature Western classical music, vaguely Latin beats and only one piece that even resembles a dance number. The score is sufficiently epic and experimental, but also loses impact as the film progresses.

Still, Kalki 2898 AD achieves exactly what it sets out to do. Ashwin has spoken to the press about his enthusiasm for combining the world of science fiction films with Hindu mythology, and while it evokes certain characters and stories from Hindu texts, the film is somehow less overtly religious than Brahmastra or even RRR. It’s the beginning of a cinematic universe, a star-studded vehicle with big names from both north and south India, and audiences will flock to see it on the big screen.

Grade B-

“Kalki 2898 AD” is now in cinemas.