Brahmastra – Part One: Shiva Movie Review: The Story of Ayan Mukerji is quite promising. Ranbir Kapoor gave a great performance. Alia Bhatt looked stunning and delivered an A-grade performance.
Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) is a DJ residing in Mumbai who lives a carefree life. He is an orphan; he lives with the orphans and loves them. He finds Isha (Alia Bhatt) and instantly falls in love with her. He is also attracted to her, especially as he learns about her way of life. Everything was going well when suddenly Shiva started blinking. He sees the evil Junoon (Mouni Roy) kill a scientist, Mohan Bhargav (Shah Rukh Khan), and takes a rare artifact from him. Before he died, Mohan said under pressure that another piece of the artifact was by an artist named Anish Shetty (Nagarjuna Akkineni), who lived in Varanasi. Shiva sees all of this and realizes that Junoon is ready to attack Anish next. Isha also joins him. In Varanasi, Shiva and Isha save Anish just in time. Thanks to Anish, they learn that Mohan's stolen artifact is part of the 'Brahmastra'. Anish sacrifices his life and when Shiva confronts the evil Junoon, he unknowingly destroys him using his fire power.
Ayan Mukerji's story is fresh, promising, and has the makings of a large-scale action artist. However, the writing of him will be released at a later date. He too has a lot of unanswered questions, hoping they will be answered in the sequel. Instead of getting the audience excited about the second part, he ended up letting them down a bit. Hussain Dalal's dialogue is under control. A movie like this should have a strong line. The dialogue in the Shah Rukh Khan scene in particular is terrible.
Ayan Mukerji's direction is fine. To give credit where he is due, he has handled scale and grandeur very well. The romantic part is beautiful and some of the scenes of the first half and the beginning of the second act stand out. The previous two films had almost no action and here it excels in combat sequences. Unfortunately, the script did not complete the process. First, the whole concept of Brahmastra and its related features are not explained in a simple way. Many aspects may be redundant. Second, the climactic fight is stretched and could have been shortened for better impact. Third, the writing leaves some loose ends. For example, the children who lived with Shiva were completely forgotten. One would hope that they would have something to do, especially when Isha returned to his place in the second half. Although Isha and Shiva's chemistry is sweet, Isha's background is never mentioned. Her grandfather is only shown for a second (that's comic relief, too), but one wishes a little more time was spent establishing who his family members were. Even Teacher students are not given enough screen time. Lastly and most importantly, the film ends with the promise of a sequel and several characters are also introduced. However, their faces were never shown. If the audience knew which actor was playing the character, the movie would be instantly better.
BRAHMASTRA PART ONE: SHIVA starts off on a good note. The Mohan Bhargav scene, although it does not have good dialogues, it can still be seen by the presence of Shah Rukh Khan and also by the splendor of him. Shiva's entrance was fine and the way he brought Isha to her house and the request for the birthday party was too good. The same goes for the scene where Shiva tells Isha about his plans in Varanasi. The Varanasi order is amazing. The chase sequence in the hills is really addictive, while the break point is decent. From here, the film slides. Some scenes stand out like Shiva learning to use his powers and Shiva discovering his parents. The other sequences are not very impressive.
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The show, however, was perfect. Ranbir Kapoor gives an outstanding performance and looks convincing as a man whose life suddenly changes when he discovers that he has power. In action and emotional scenes, he shines. Alia Bhatt performs mesplendidly and gave an A grade performance. Fortunately, her role stood out and her chemistry with Ranbir was exciting. Shah Rukh Khan is fine and adds a star rating. Nagarjuna Akkineni's cameo, however, is better. Moni Roy is fine. Dimple Kapadia was horrified. Saurav Gurjar, Gurfateh Pirzada and others were fine.
Pritam Chakraborty's music is from various chartbusters. 'Kesariya' is amazing and very well described. 'Deva Deva' is moving and one of the few good things about the second half. 'Dance Ka Bhoot' is very entertaining. 'Rasiya' and 'Avaaz De' are fair.
The cinematography of V Manikandan, Pankaj Kumar, Sudeep Chatterjee, Vikash Nowlakha and Patrick Duroux is impressive. Alia's costume, in particular, stands out. VFX from DNEG and Redefine is one of the USP of movies and is world class and meets global standards. Amrita Mahal Nakai's production designs are very rich. The action from Dan Bradley, Diyan Hristov and Parvez Shaikh is very exciting and bloodless. Bishwadeep Chatterjee's sound design is great. Prakash Kurup's editing is neat, but the movie could be shorter.
Overall, BRAHMASTRA PART ONE: SHIVA boasts strong visuals, performances, a great first half, and superior visuals. However, the second half was weak, mainly due to faulty writing. At the box office, it will open in a big way due to the overwhelming curiosity surrounding the film. After a weekend of plenty, the film will have a hard time keeping up.
