By Dan Skip Allen

“Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” is an Indian/Hindi language fantasy adventure. It mainly deals with the mythology of Indian culture. It’s directed by Nitesh Tiwari. It was produced as an Indian film but picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Releasing. There was a preview of this film back at Cinema Con in April, and people were blown away by what they saw. I saw the trailer a couple of weeks ago, and I was equally blown away. Now I’m finally able to see the film and I was blown away by what I watched. It was a marathon, but it was worth spending my time with such an incredible movie.

This story basically follows two men, one as an adult who goes on a journey to become a great leader and warrior for his people, Ravana (Yash) and another who was born to be a great warrior but had a caring and sympathetic soul for those around him, Ram (Ranbir Kapoor). These two men have different journeys to where they ended up, but they both had their fair share of struggles to become the men they are. One waged war on his enemies who treated his people badly for so many years, and the other trained and learned empathy from his family and friends. He married Sita (Sai Pallavi), a beautiful woman who is also a warrior, and they stayed together. These are legendary men in Indian mythology that still have a place in their society today. I always say it’s great to believe in something.

This film is the first part of a two part story following Ram and Sita on their exile and Ravana kidnapping Sita to force Ram to eventually fight him because of an injustice he believes he caused on his sister. His sister tried to marry him by disguising herself as Sita to trick him into marriage. This is a prime example of fantasy and mythology coming together to tell a grand escape epic. The story is based on lore from Indian culture but is definitely fictional in every way. There are flying elephants and giant  talking vultures as well as giants who are described as demons throughout the movie. There is a lot to digest in this film. It might take a second watch to absorb everything the writers and director are throwing at you, the viewer.

The two main actors in the film are mainly Indian actors so I wasn’t that familiar with them but they were incredible  in this picture. They owned the screen every time  they were on it. The camera made them look grand and very glorious. Their characters deserved that treatment. The rest of the cast was terrific as well. I did get a little confused at times who certain people were, but as the movie moved along, I gradually understood who certain people were. I was just amazed at the two main actors throughout the film. Even during the action sequences, they kicked ass and had me cheering for them. That’s real star power there. Everybody in America will know who these guys are come awards season because this film will get them noticed for sure.

There are some incredible technical aspects of the story and film. As mentioned, there are a lot of visually created creatures in the movie. The visual effects are simply amazing. There are astounding battle sequences and fight scenes and chase sequences that are just jaw-dropping. My eyes were all over the place with the awe-inspiring visuals I was looking at throughout this film. The cgi and visual effects rival that of a big Hollywood production. The budget was over $400 million dollars on this, and the sequel combined. You can tell where that money went. They definitely used a lot of it on the cgi and visual effects. 

Another technical aspect of this film was the production design and costumes.There are incredible sets from grand palaces to ball rooms to castles all the way through this movie. Even small shacks looked intricately built for this film. I genuinely felt I was in a different world with all of the sets and locations within this large-scale movie. With that comes thousands of costumes, for all of the characters and extras on set. Each scene had hundreds of people in period and ceremonial garb. A lot of the costumes had gold jewelry, crowns, bracelets, and necklaces. The gowns and robes all looked superbly crafted by this department. I can see the costume designers getting an Oscar nomination for these costumes. They were magnificent in every possible way.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but another technical aspect of the film is its music and score. On more than one occasion, I could hear tribal music and drums as a group of people were marching along a road or getting ready for a ceremony. There were traditional songs sung at one or two points in the story but the main thing I noticed throughout the film was the rousing booming score by Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman.This is Zimmer’s first foray into Indian or Bollywood films and he knocked it out of the park. There were many moments when this score took over the film. Especially during action scenes and / or very dramatic moments. This is clearly one of the best scores of this year. I’d be surprised if it didn’t get nominated for awards during awards season. I was in awe.

With mythological stories and fantastical elements like this film, you have to have a suspension of disbelief. This movie is filled with moments where you say that can’t happen, but you don’t care because it’s simply amazing to behold. This movie has a lot of moments like that. You’re transported to another time and place, and you get lost in the extravaganza of it all. Sure, I genuinely cared about some of the characters like Ram and Sita and how they were exiled. I also knew about the evil plot to get him to marry Ravana’s sister by her and was saying in my head no! There is also a sequence in the heart of Ravana where he’s talking to multiple versions of himself to get advice on what to do regarding his sister’s  husband at one point and later what had happened to his sister at the hand of Ram’s brother. There is a lot of Shakespearian storytelling here. That’s what makes films like this so good you want all of that kind of unbelievable stuff in here. It makes for a better movie for the audience that way. This one had everything, including the kitchen sink in here. And I loved every moment of it in glorious 3D.

“Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” or “Ramayana: Part 1”. However, you choose to call its epic filmmaking on the largest scale possible. The epic storytelling matched the sets and production design. The cgi and visual effects were astounding to behold. The costumes were glamorous and grand and beautiful.  The fight scenes had me in awe. The choreography from the fight scenes and dancing scenes was pretty amazing. Everything in this film was equal in greatness to the scale it was created on. That’s what makes this film so groundbreaking for me. The directors made one of the best movies of the year. It didn’t matter what language it was in. It matches anything I’ve seen on this kind of scale all year. People are going to go see this in droves because it deserves that kind of audience reception. 

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 1/2