Cacophonous Kalki

I am not going to bother with any introductions, because this film is so famous by now. If you need an introduction, you can watch the trailer. This review doesn’t contain much material outside of the trailer, so there are few spoilers here.

I will dive straight into the movie.

Me: Oh this is an action movie? Such movies remind me of Battle of Helm’s Deep. It is the longest battle on screen.

Kalki: Move aside, Battle of Helm’s Deep! Here comes the longest battle scene on screen! In fact, this is not a battle scene! It’s an entire movie that’s a battle!

Me: But, but, in Battle of Helm’s Deep you could follow the action! Here, I often don’t know what’s happening! It’s just people hitting people and lasers whizzing by!

Kalki: Here’s the Bhagwad Geeta playing in the background of a fight scene. The soul is immortal. No fire can burn it, no wind can put it out.

Me: Impressive! The eastern touch and gives some philosophical dep.......

Kalki: Hero bangs his fist and two dozen people fly in the air.

Me: What’s going on here? Remember how the Battle of the Bastard made you cling to the edge of the seat and bite your nails?

Kalki: Hero catches a prisoner but the prisoner hero-worships him,

Me: What exactly is the plot?

Kalki: Ok, here’s the plot. Here’s a desert scene, everything is yellow and brown. And there’s a huge inverted pyramid!

Me: Sounds like Dune?

Kalki: Oh nono. This is not an inter-galactic saga. This is Kashi, the world’s first city.

Me: Kashi is not the world's first city…

Kalki: Shut up and look at the people of Kashi. Here are some guys, and girls for that matter (nowadays we must have inclusion.) They are all dressed up in tight leathers pants and boots and shirts with metal shields.

Me: Hey, this is Kashi. No one dresses up in leathers and full-metals in the summers of Gangetic plains!

Kalki: This is the dystopian future, yo! This is what dystopian future looks like, ok! Look at the steam punk vehicles, the concrete rubble lying around…

Me: The color palette and costumes are borrowed from Mad Max? And the vehicles from Mortal Engines?

Kalki: Those are old news. Here are some lasers.

Me: Shiny lasers don’t improve the story.

Kalki: More lasers. Ping ping ping. With 3D we can shine all the lasers directly into your eyes. Plus, at the flick of a wrist, you can conjure up weapons that chain your opponent. And demolish buildings. BOOM!

Me: According to Gamp’s law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot invent things out of thin air. Where did those weapons come from, out of nowhere?

Kalki: Harry Potter is also old news. Here you have shoes that make you fly!

Me: But why are they flying? Even an action movie needs to have a story. Here there’s just a bulky guy in a stupid man bun randomly beating up people and then going and then stealing another person’s drink and trying to convince us that it’s cool. So not cool.

Kalki: Here’s your story! Here’s a system that enslaves pregnant women and conducts lab experiments on them.

Me: Handmaid’s tale?

Kalki: She’s no handmaid. Here’s a woman who was supposed to be experimented on, but she’s hiding her pregnancy because she wants this child.

Me: Oh. Wow. Finally a story centered around pregnancy, and women’s experiences. The woman’s desire to keep the child safe from experimentation is understandable.

Kalki: Exceedingly creepy and disturbing scene of experimentation on a pregnant woman. In the background is creepy lab scene with pregnant women in sterilized, monochrome cells reminiscent of a beehive.

Me: Hair raised. Ok. Points for dystopian ambience. Now let’s get back to the pregnant

woman. Is it really necessary to make her a virgin mother? Can’t we have a regular, sexually active woman who creates the baby by using her messy, subjective sexuality?

Kalki: Oh no, we cannot have that. She is Maa, the mother of God. The mother of everyone, even Amitabh Bachchan bows his head to her. Our revered mother will be a pure virgin.

Me: Do we really need these western ideas that limit women? South Asian mythology has very many stories of messy pregnancies where the woman has sexual agency.

Me: You don’t expect us to revere an unholy, impure woman who rolls around in hay, do you? Her womb has been filled by a pure, sterile, seeding process…..

Me: But…

Kalki: Meanwhile, here is Disha Patani in a skimpy outfit sneaking our pathetic hero into the complex, because that’s how the world works. Hot girls turn into doormats for useless fellows. Women with sexual agency are not allowed, but sexual objects are fine.

Me: Where did Disha take Prabhas? What is this energy room? How does it create energy by drawing from everything on the earth? Why is it situated on top of a humungous artificial waterfall? Why is the humungous waterfall? Why are workers working 1 foot away from the edge of the waterfall? What if they slip and fall? Why is there no safety harness? What sort of job does Disha have? How is she able to take Prabhas along into this high security zone? What are those huge makai ko ghogha like things that she is taking out of and putting into holes? Why does she not have a supervisor? If the security is so high, how is she able to get out with Prabhas and go to the beach when she wants to? How does she get that fancy dress for the party, that changes colors if you pull a string? How did they get to attend the party? And is that all we are going to see of her? So her entire purpose is…..

Kalki: Shhhh. Look at the hero who never loses a fight. He just beat up a few more people.

Me: I thought this movie was about protecting a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. Can we see what she is doing?

Kalki: Sure. She is walking through the fire.

Me: What is she thinking? What is she eating? Is she having morning sickness? Any cravings? Any pre-partum depression? Any worry about the future of the child?

Kalki: We have given her a skimpy top. That will burn in the fire. But no problem, she can cover her breasts with her hands. Her skirt will stay.

Me: How, though? Her skirt swishes, it should catch fire quicker…

Kalki: Hey, look! She is rescued by a rebel team. Didn’t you say you wanted women’s stories? Here’s a cool rebel woman for you!

Me: Bravo Kyra! We need more action heroines like you! Why should heroes have all the action?

Kalki: Ok that’s it. If she does everything, what will our oldie do? Kill her off.

Me: What oldie?

Kalki: Enter Amitabh Bachchan as … Ashwatthama! Blow up a few buildings then!

Me: I don’t think the Mahabharata describes Ashwatthama as having superhuman strength! That would be Bheem!

Kalki: Oh hello. This is mythology, not history. Anything is possible. Here you go, Ashwatthama the un-dead! Emerges from a heap of rubble that he is buried into! Swings from an impossible chain and still lands on both feet!

Me: If I want to watch action, I would rather watch a young and hot hero. Or even an old and hot one, give me Shah Rukh Khan anytime. But what is this? An 80 year old, wrinkled man with kohl lined eyes, fully white hair and beard, in a dirty dhoti and shawl of questionable color, jumping around like he is 20? Did I come to the theater to watch this?

Kalki: Old man catches a missile in his bare hands and hurls it back at his opponent.

Me: He is Rajnikanth now? Would this kind of thing even work if it was not Amitabh Bachchan? Without the huge capital of his existing popularity?

Kalki: Close up of oldie’s face with gleaming Mani on his forehead. Terrible.

Me: Although, who says it’s working now?

Kalki: It’s working great, ok. So great that we even put it on our poster.

Me: Let’s see what the pregnant woman is up to. Are her feet swollen by now?

Kalki: The baby is 150 days old and is developing at an extraordinary speed. It will be born in just a few weeks.

Me: Dude, even the most ignorant man would know that just because a baby is developing fast doesn’t mean it will be born soon. Dude, babies take their own time to come out. Dude, at 150 days a fetus is not 5 months, it is 21 weeks, ask anyone who has kept a weekly count during pregnancy. And a baby born a few weeks after 21 weeks would be premature, it would have very low chances of surviving. Also, timing of birth cannot be predicted a few weeks ahead of birth. Dude, this is ridiculous. Have you talked to anyone who has given birth?

Kalki: There is Mariam. Our token woman in this world of superheroes. She lives in Shambhala.

Me: You mean the fabled land that was believed to be around Nepal or Tibet or…

Kalki: Exactly. The imagined Buddhist utopia. Let’s have some Buddhist monks. And some prayers wheels. And some mandalas. All out of context. And some mountain faces.

Me: Hmm. Nowadays all movies have this kind of inclusion….

Kalki: Now let’s set fire to the Mandala. Without any reason, explanation, or precedence. And throw in some African faces and costumes. Random drumbeats. Unplaceable music.

Me: What are Africans doing in the mountains of Asia?

Kalki: Inclusion! Now let’s rotate the huge prayer wheel, it’s a weapon in disguise.

Me: Is it a good idea to make a weapon out of a Buddhist religious object?

Kalki: SHALL WE FIGHT FOR OUR LAND?

Me: Hey, isn’t this story about the pregnant woman?

Kalki: Of course, everything is about protecting her. Oldie, go shadow her.

Me: Ok, finally the woman is saying something. She is frustrated with all the limitations on her life that pregnancy has brought. Relatable.

Kalki: Now let’s have the oldie give her a lecture.

Me:

Kalki: About motherhood.

Me:

Kalki: And about how women must be strong as the earth and tolerate all the difficulties that they face.

Me: Is it really necessary to have a man give a lecture about motherhood? Do you really think a pregnant woman finds any kind of solace or guidance in the words of a man?

Kalki: OK, that’s it. Enough of her boring talk. Now back to action.

Me: Good God! Now there are two of the oldie! As if one wasn’t enough!

Kalki: Had enough of the oldie? Ok, bring in the youngie. Have his car walk around like a giant beetle.

Me: Did I see this before? In the movie Cars?

Kalki: Maybe, but have you seen this before? This oldie now demolishes stone palaces with a flick of his arm.

Me: ENOUGH OF THIS OLDIE! CAN YOU TELL US WHAT IS GOING ON? WHO IS FIGHTING WHO? WHY IS EVERYONE AFTER THIS WOMAN?

Kalki: Bring Gandiv Dhanush. Bring Vijay Dhanush. Amitabh is Ashwatthama and Prabhas is…. (ok no spoilers). And then there is this ancient oldie who lives inside a vast complex that is approached via a giant's hands, a tunnel, and mandala like opening where he floats on air in a chamber above water which he sometimes dives into, and has six satellites revolving around him and some random disjointed hands that do his bidding and some pipes that feed into him. One drop of serum extracted from the pregnant woman makes him Kamal Hassan. And he wields the Gandiv.

Me: So he is Arjun?

Kalki: I didn’t say that. I just showed him wielding the Gandiv.

Me: But if he is Arjun then why is he putting fertile women in cells and experimenting on their bodies and killing them with his formula? What is the formula? What is project K?

Kalki: All that in the next movie. Ba-bye!

Me: Ugh. I am giving this movie a total of 1 out of 10. The marks go to the chilly dystopian settings, well done. The earthy, yellow-brown atmosphere, the steam punk vehicles, the costumes. The CGI. And the rest of the marks which should have gone to the story are a big zero.

The entire movie is like one extended battle scene, there is constant noise of machines like there are 10 JCBS juddering around scattering gravel in your backyard all the time, there is no respite, no breaks where human emotions take precedence, no romance, and, shameful for a Bollywood movie, no songs and dances! Can you believe it? NO SONG? There is Deepika and there is no dance? The only songs are sometimes played in the background and are so bland that I don’t remember a single one.

Compared to other recent action movies on a varying scale of brainlessness and toxic masculinity, I rate it very very low. Despite all of them being ultimately problematic, at least in Jawan and Pathan you get to see Shah Rukh Khan, and Bahubali and RRR were fun to watch, with a variety of interesting costumes and props. Kalki has none of them!

Kalki: It has Prabhas! Bahubali vibes?

Me: It’s proven by now that Prabhas only looks good in dhotis. In sci-fi costume he looks like a plastic action toy. His wisecracking smartass AI assistant Bujji has more personality than him. In fact, Bujji is the most interesting character in the movie, shame on Prabhas!

Kalki: Ok, take a look at Prabhas in Mahabharata era costume! Hope you will come to watch the full movie!

Me: I don’t think so!