Is it time the Hindu gods had their own cinematic universe? Nag Ashwin certainly thinks so! He's not a filmmaker averse to big ideas; in fact, his debut feature “Yevade Subramanyam” (AKA “Who is Subramanyam?”) blended the intimate philosophy of a man's self-discovery with an epic and cinematic physical journey. By his fifth feature, the intimidatingly epic “Kalki 2898 AD”, he has the skills required for huge sweep and scope, making it also the ideal comeback vehicle for beloved ‘Pan-Indian' film star Prabhas after a mixed few years at the box office. With a rich mythos and iconography at his fingertips, Ashwin retools Hindu scriptures into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure that spends three hours thoroughly laying the groundwork for a colossal new franchise that's ambition is only matched by its brimming self-confidence.
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The huge tapestry of “Kalki 2898 AD” centres on Prabhas' likeable (if morally bankrupt) bounty hunter Bhairava and his trusty robot companion Bujji (Keerthy Suresh) struggling to make ends meet in the dangerous streets of Kasi, the holy city that has since become overrun with corruption and oppression nearly 900 years in our future. Bhairava's greatest desire is to enter ‘The Complex', a massive inverted pyramid that floats above the city and sucks the sparse natural resources from the core of the Earth, topped with one of the last slices of paradise left on the planet.
However, little does he know that the nefarious Supreme Yaskin (a terrifying and transformative Kamal Haasan) is using the facility as a front for heinous experiments on pregnant women, trying to extract a serum that will turn his decrepit form into an all-powerful god. Deepika Padukone is SUM-80, a five-months pregnant prisoner whose escape sends the balance of power into disarray, and a spectacular manhunt involving Bhairava, wasteland raiders, political rebels and a resurrected god Ashwatthama (‘Big B' himself Amitabh Bachchan) twists the fabric of reality into a tale of a Hindu second coming.
From all that, it's needless to say that “Kalki 2898 AD” plays best when played big, loud and with a crowd. The mind-boggling accomplished production design by Nitin Zihani Choudhary blends some terrific sets with the Oscar-winning team at Double Negative's splendid visual effects (save for a weightless de-aged Amitabh Bachchan in bookending flashback sequences), making the many avenues of Ashwin's world a pleasure to spend time in, and an occasion to look forward to when a sequel eventually releases. Prabhas drives a high-speed three wheeler that can transform into a mech, enemy ships look like flying peach stones with lava at their cores, and the mix of ancient aesthetics with a futuristic edge proves to be a coherent and cool-as-ice style for Prabhas and co. to strut their stuff in. In a box office year dominated by sand-blasted ruins and desert-set battles, this is up there with the most dynamic, with each set-piece bringing with it thunderous intensity and a loose grasp on gravity. The action chops of “Kaithi 2898 AD” are difficult to deny, and sees Prabhas maintaining his mojo as an action lead after a lukewarm half-decade at the movies, proving last year's “Salaar” was thankfully no fluke.
There are, of course, numerous cheeky references to this fact. On top of a winking shout-out to Prabhas' “Rebel Fans” in the audience, there are some truly roar-worthy cameos in “Kalki 2898 AD”. Its most knowing is undoubtedly a bonkers appearance from “RRR” and Prabhas' own “Baahubali 1 & 2” director S.S. Rajamouli as a rival bounty hunter on his former leading man's trail. Prabhas is panicked: “If he catches me, I'm screwed for five years!”, he screams. Wind back the clock five years from 2024, and that's precisely when Prabhas' flop period begins after the barnstorming success of Rajamouli's diptych that spelled international success and an Oscar win for the director and an inexplicable curse for the star. This type of gag is ever-present in “Kalki 2898 AD”, a film that is always trying to be the biggest film in the world, yet also finds time to laugh at itself and its creative team in a lighthearted way.
As for Prabhas, he is excellent here, effortlessly playing a character who is despicable on paper but extremely heroic in execution. His actions are increasingly mercenary and motivated by money, and his ongoing rivalry with Ashwatthama, SUM-80's seven foot tall protector played with pathos, gravitas and grumpiness by Bachchan, grounds the superhuman brawls with stakes and moral ambiguity. Prabhas' relentless love for a quip versus Bachchan's stony-faced silence is a good dynamic that will only deepen as the story progresses beyond this first film, even if the physical fighting itself has a habit of reaching a stalemate after 10 minutes or so. There are plenty of memorable faces in supporting roles from Saswata Chatterjee as The Complex's ruthless bureaucratic enforcer Commander Manas to Anna Ben as plucky rebel fighter Kyra, so it's a shame that the film otherwise squanders the potential of casting Deepika Padukone as its emotional core.
Padukone has turned in some brilliant performances of late that have been matched by their characters' strength and complexity (particularly in the extraordinary flashback sequence in Atlee's “Jawan”), and that is not something given to her here. SUM-80 is treated as a damsel in distress at best and a MacGuffin at worst, a desired object for good and for ill, and despite Padukone's reliable presence, she is denied agency throughout the lengthy three hour runtime. When a film ends with sequel bait as clear as this, there is plenty room for all of the characters to grow further down the line, but “Kalki 2898 AD” unfortunately joins the masses as a franchise with a promising part one that keeps the wheels spinning in one place and rarely letting rip on its potential. As a result, the emotions don't reach the heights they should, mostly providing a feast for the senses, but not for the heart.
By the time the words “The Kalki Cinematic Universe Continues” blaze across the scene at the end of the third hour, you will either be punching the air with excitement or weakly prying yourself out of your seat, legs numb and retinas scorched. You may even be wondering what this is “continuing” if you think this is just the first chapter, but there is actually an animated prequel miniseries streaming globally on Amazon Prime titled “B&B: Bujji & Bhairava”, so there is already plenty to sink one's teeth into with this IP. For this single film, 181 minutes is a tremendous amount of time to take to establish so much, fueling vendettas and creating high-octane science-fiction rules to be exploited and expanded as time goes by. The grandiosity of Ashwin's vision and Prabhas' presence is undeniable, and a sequel has a tremendous amount to deliver further down the line. Indian cinema's most rebellious leading man is back with a vengeance, and judging by the reaction of crowds and critics alike, he's here to stay.
