What went wrong with Brahmastra?

Brahmastra: Part One - Shiva Review

Rating - 1.5/ 5
Director - Ayan Mukerji
Producer - Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Namit Malhotra, Ranbir Kapoor, Marijke Desouza, Ayan Mukerji, S .S Raja mouli
Writer - Ayan Mukerji
Dialogue - Hussain Dalal
Cinematography - V. Manikandan, Pankaj Kumar, Sudeep Chatterjee, Vikash Nowlakha, Patrick Duroux,
Editor - Prakash Kurup
Music - Pritam, Simon Franglen
Duration -167 minutes
Budget – Estimated to be ₹410 crore

Also releasing in Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam, Kannada)
CBFC: U/A - Adventure/Fantasy
(Dus saal ki mehnat - khoda pahad nikli chuhiya)

2D, 3D, IMAX 3D, IMAX 2D
 
Starring - Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt Mouni Roy, Nagarjuna Akkineni, & Other's 

Filmography: Some important film's 

Ranbir Kapoor
1) Saawariya ( 2007)
2) Sanju ( 2018)
3) Shamshera ( 2022) 

Alia Bhatt
1) Student of the year (2012)
2) Sadak 2 (2020)
3) Gangubai Kathiawade (2022)
4) RRR (2022)
5) Darlings (2022) 

Ayan Mukerji (Director)
1) Wake up Sid (2009)
2) Yeh Jawaani hai Deewani (2013) 

Plus points

Film is rich in photography (4DOP are in the film), location, background & other technical aspects. 

Minus points

1) Acting:

It seems Ranbir Kapoor has forgotten how to act. He was much better in Shamshera. He could not carry the film on his shoulders. Ranbir looks confused in the entire drama, clueless about what to do! His dressing is horrible. Dress designer could not give this poor guy decent clothes to wear.

Alia Bhatt was decent in few scenes. She looks beautiful but seems forced to act alongside her real life lover Ranbir Kapoor. The chemistry and intensity of love is just missing.

Mahanayak and Shehanshah of acting Amitabh Bacchan is wasted. He looks ordinary. Not appealing. He was kept to deliver few long speeches (in which he has done a PhD).

Mouni Roy hardly looks deadly in vampish role. She did much better in serial Nagin. Mouni eyes turning red in anger cannot be termed as class acting. Really pathetic!

Nagarjun had negligible screen space. He failed to deliver and was kept to please the  South audience with expectations of great box office collection.

Five kid students of Amitabh’s ashram were useless not impressive. They astonishingly had so much power!

Dimple Kapadia had two passing scenes. Her role could have been enacted by any junior artist. What a criminal  waste of her  talent! Its surprising to see Shahrukh Khan in a small role like this. King Khan failed to make his presence be felt into the drama.

In a nutshell, all the Astra (of all actors) were outdated  in the film.

2) Direction

What took Aayan Mukerji to make such an ordinary film for 10 years? It is no match to any Marvel films which were made 25 years ago. Brahmastra is flat in entertainment,  zero in emotions or thrills in action and poor in VFX. Romance also hardly touches your heart. 

3) Story screenplay dialogues

Story barely exists which is stretched like a rubber. Film mythology is absent. Fiction is below average. Aayan Mukerji could not write a great script in 5 year of his research.

Screenplay has many loopholes. It is not gripping. How Shahrukh Khan and Nagarjun got the pieces of Brahmastra is unexplained. Further, what were 100 people doing in Amitabh’s ashram?

Lastly, pieces of Brahmastra looks like one roadside stone broken into three pieces lacking visual impact. It is most surprising that there is no main villain in the film. It’s surprising to see the villain in the form of a Statue. Can you believe this stupidity?

Dialogues too, are pretty ordinary. 

4)Music

With 3 songs in the film, there’s no chartbuster.
a) "Kesariya" Arijit Singh
b) "Deva Deva" Arijit Singh, Jonita Gandhi,
c) " Dance Ka Bhoot" Arijit Singh

Picturization of all songs are ordinary. 

5)VFX and special effects

VFX is not eye-pleasing. Average standard! In fact, laser shows are more delightful to watch. Wonder where was Rs 450 crore spent? Also, why was it shot in 3D when no scene makes a 3D impact?

6) Action

Most of the action scenes are long and repetitive. which are not exciting or thrilling (except for one car action scene). 

7) Editing

First half of the film is decent but the second half is unbearable testing viewers patience. 

BOX OFFICE

Many people in the film  trade  and especially audience are surprised to see an extraordinary advance booking of despite promos failing to catch their attention. In fact, the last trailer was launched yesterday (ordinary one).

Director Rajamouli will definitely regret his decision to land his name in all 4 south languages.

After the weekend, film will struggle do get a decent collection. It's seems that Yashraj films and Dharma production are competing that who delivers the maximum number of flop films.

After seeing the box result of Brahmastra, Karan Johar will never dream in his lifetime to make part 2. It will be tough time for director Aayan Mukerji to pick up the right  subject for his next film.

Film opening is good in  3D screens but disastrous in 2D. Today's collection is likely to  be around 25 to 30 crore.