SS Rajamouli, whose career graph has been skyrocketing upwards ever since the naive yet gripping Student No.1, doesn't care about sacrificing the characters (pun intended!) to satisfy his guilty pleasure and to the heartbreak of the audience whom he kept on knife's edge for better part of 2 years. He also knows how to give the audience a visual tapestry so that we forget the reason why we were kept on knife's edge and are able to sustain the length of the movie. By the time we know the reason why Baahubali was killed, we have already fallen hook, line and sinker to this audacious, mesmerizing and brilliantly played out epic.
The film doesn't waste time coming to the point. You have the Big 3 of the Bali-verse in the opening scene. There the goosebumps start and end just before the climax. With rapid energy in writing SSR is able to give ample scope for each character, both old and new. In the process he is also able to achieve heights hitherto unknown or rare in film-making - creating a climax for every scene. Even the title credits are not wasted, we are walked through The Beginning in stop motion animation. We are not spared of tension, laughs, excitement, jaw-drops, the wooows and the ooos and with the Oath-taking scene, we fall willfully to the magic of the screenplay. Kudos to SSR and Prasad for silencing even the notorious ones among the audience, like when a principal enters an unruly class room. We start obeying.
The problem surfaces post interval. Mind you, when I say problems, they are like good headaches. Imagine a lavish lunch turns into an eat-all-you-can competition. The characters ace one another in performance, the BGM turns into a Mad Max electric fusion, the dialogues get sharper, tension mounts further and amidst all this the writing is still holding you in a vice like grip. But there is just no time and hence all of this feels rushed. Even the cuts get jumpy and by the climax arrives we start to get the feel that SSR & Co have finally ran out of ideas. But once again HATS OFF to them for making us shrug off the sudden brain fades we see, especially the cannon ball scene which transforms into a 300-esque graphic sequence and the final showdown between Mahendra and Bhallaladeva.
With Baahubali series, Rajamouli has reinvented the telling of the mother of all base story line, good vs evil, and to be more generic, the art of story telling itself. Nimble in muscular and fire power with generous budget for love of action, Baahubali has positioned itself unconquerable for a long long time.
Verdict: The best bang for your buck you will ever get.
4.5/5
The film doesn't waste time coming to the point. You have the Big 3 of the Bali-verse in the opening scene. There the goosebumps start and end just before the climax. With rapid energy in writing SSR is able to give ample scope for each character, both old and new. In the process he is also able to achieve heights hitherto unknown or rare in film-making - creating a climax for every scene. Even the title credits are not wasted, we are walked through The Beginning in stop motion animation. We are not spared of tension, laughs, excitement, jaw-drops, the wooows and the ooos and with the Oath-taking scene, we fall willfully to the magic of the screenplay. Kudos to SSR and Prasad for silencing even the notorious ones among the audience, like when a principal enters an unruly class room. We start obeying.
The problem surfaces post interval. Mind you, when I say problems, they are like good headaches. Imagine a lavish lunch turns into an eat-all-you-can competition. The characters ace one another in performance, the BGM turns into a Mad Max electric fusion, the dialogues get sharper, tension mounts further and amidst all this the writing is still holding you in a vice like grip. But there is just no time and hence all of this feels rushed. Even the cuts get jumpy and by the climax arrives we start to get the feel that SSR & Co have finally ran out of ideas. But once again HATS OFF to them for making us shrug off the sudden brain fades we see, especially the cannon ball scene which transforms into a 300-esque graphic sequence and the final showdown between Mahendra and Bhallaladeva.
With Baahubali series, Rajamouli has reinvented the telling of the mother of all base story line, good vs evil, and to be more generic, the art of story telling itself. Nimble in muscular and fire power with generous budget for love of action, Baahubali has positioned itself unconquerable for a long long time.
Verdict: The best bang for your buck you will ever get.
4.5/5
