Review : Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva’s technical prowess may appeal to the younger audiences!

After a very long wait #AyanMukherjee directorial #BrahmāstraPartOneShiva is finally released. It’s a fantasy adventure film which takes references from Hindu mythology. Superbly projected on a big scale the movie scores high on it’s technical aspects which are on par with Hollywood movies. The VFX is top notch and the viewers get a treat of spectacular visuals as the five cinematographers (V Manikandan, Pankaj Kumar, Sudeep Chatterjee, Vikash Nowlakha and Patrick Duroux) bring in new vistas to the story telling. The movie travels from Mumbai to Varanasi to Himachal Pradesh and the beautiful locations where the movie is shot at looks appealing.

Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva is the story of Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor), as the title suggests, who has special powers which he is oblivious to. Being an orphan himself he takes care of orphaned kids which impresses Isha (Alia Bhatt) who meets him accidentally and both fall for each other. She forgets to return to London as she is fascinated by Shiva’s special association with ‘Fire’. He has Agni Astra and around Isha he realises about the same. There’s Junoon (Mouni Roy) who is looking out for three pieces of Brahmāstra to be presented to her Guru Dev who wants to acquire super power. But as those parts of Brahmāstra are in three scattered locations she fights three different individuals to get them. After getting two pieces each from, a scientist Mohan Bhargava (Shahrukh Khan) who has Vanarastra and Anish Shetty (Nagarjun Akkineni), she shifts focus to locate ultimate senior Guruji (Amitabh Bachchan) who wields the Prabhāstra. He is the leader of the Brahmānsh, a secret society of sages who harness the Brahm-Shakti. Shiva and Isha keep fighting Junoon’s attacks. Ultimately who retrieves the Brahmāstra is the crux of the narration. With the announcement of second part, Brahmāstra Part Two : Dev, the warfare concludes.

The story though intertwined with mythology, is a simple love story. In fact as a dialogue in the film says, Brahmāstra is pure love, the narration is mainly around the love story of Shiva and Isha. It fails to ignite interest and the lack of novelty in the narration makes it more uninteresting. Ayan Mukherjee has used technical aspects to create visual impacts and he scores high there but the repetitiveness of the action scenes makes one lose interest in the plot. Music is good but a couple of songs come around abruptly. The cinematography and background score is top class and visually film is impressive. The 166 min runtime looks much longer due to repetitive scenes. The first half is excellent and creates anticipation but the film falters in the second half.

In acting department Ranbir Kapoor has done a very good job where he brings out the vulnerability of Shiva to the fore. Alia Bhatt is impressive too. Ranbir-Alia’s chemistry is very good and it makes their love scenes more impactful. Amitabh Bachchan does justice to his role but his presence should have been encashed more appropriately by the writer-director. Nagarjun has skimpy and Dimple Kapadia has minuscule screen time. Their talent has been wasted by the makers.

Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva scores high on technical grounds which may appeal to the younger audiences.

Rating :- ***1/2