Brahmāstra: Part One Shiva— Ideal for kids

First and foremost, Brahmāstra is not sci-fi — it’s a fantasy movie, just like Maleficent, Harry Potter, and Fantastic Beasts. It has an extraordinary setting and you can figure out where the whopping amount of 400 crores was spent. Everything is big. The technology and graphics used is something that has never been experimented with in Bollywood movies. It’s digestible.

The editing in this movie is a little bit hit or miss. All the characters played their parts very well — ideal for kids. However, mature audiences might find this movie to be generic and the characters of Nandi Astra and Junoon to be off-putting. Amitabh Bachchan is only in the second half of the movie and is used mostly for exposition dumps. Nevertheless, Bramastra is still an entertaining movie overall. The first half is particularly well-paced and exciting to watch on the big screen. The epic music by Pritam worked well with the movie as a whole, if not the movie, at least the songs are very tempting, lively & positive.

Brahmāstra: Part One — Shiva may feel dated and have gone through development hell, but it’s satisfying to see that the VFX are still up to par. It’s clear that the five cinematographers working on the film put a lot of effort into making sure the visual effects were up to snuff. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an Indian movie get such a positive reaction from the audience in the theater — people were cheering and clapping throughout. It’s not on the same level as RRR or KGF, but it’s still good to see people enjoying it.

The climax of the movie feels empty and disconnected from the rest of the film, possibly because it’s split into three parts. This makes it difficult to follow the movie’s plot and feel invested in the characters or the world. It’s unfortunate that the movie seems to be primarily focused on the sizzling chemistry and love story between Ranbir and Alia, rather than giving more development to the actual plotline. All we’re given are flashbacks of events from the past, which doesn’t do much in helping us understand what’s going on in the present. It would have been beneficial if the movie had provided more depth and explanations as to what was happening throughout the story.

The pickup lines used are so cringey & dialogues are weak- a weird mix of Hindi and English. I won’t consider Aryan Mukherjee as a director as he has compiled everything & consulted many directors — everyone’s idea summed up into one. It’s messy and tries to be everything. The overall objective is to win the audience so he took everything to make it right but yet it feels short.

I won’t consider Aryan Mukherjee as a director because his work is a compilation of everyone else’s ideas. It’s messy and feels like the movie is trying to be everything. The objective is to win the audience, but he takes too much from others and doesn’t add anything new or original. As a result, his work feels forced and inauthentic.

What’s good

• The original movie, No remake
• Cinematography by Pankaj Kumar & team
• First Half
• Concept of Astraverse & potential
• Ranbir and Alia Bhatt’s chemistry
• Pritam’s music
• Background score by Simon Franglen

What’s not good

• Characters: Nandi Astra(Nagarjuna), Guru(Amitabh Bachchan), Junoon (Mouni Roy)
• Cringey Dialogues
• The second half ( full of red, yellow, and pink lights only)
• Full Second half shot at night only to let us see the light LOL- Diwali experience
• A quick glimpse of Dev would pull audiences

Verdict

• One time watch
• Family movie

Author: Hawrry Bhattarai