For whatever reason, Kalki 2898 AD didn’t have enough pull to get me into the theatres, so I watched it once it was out on Netflix this week. While the premise seemed interesting and VFX felt top notch, from the trailer itself, I knew it would contain some stereotypical South Indian tropes which would be a huge drag.

Where I thought it shone: the story was great, having linked Indian mythology with a futuristic setting was a neat idea. The VFX effort needs to be applauded, especially compared to what was considered state of the art for Indian films just a couple of years ago. The performances by Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan and Deepika Padukone were splendid.

Where I thought it bombed: The stereotypical South Indian film tropes felt out of place – why does Prabhas’ entry need references to “rebel” and why does background score suddenly start blasting electronic horns? Action choreography was horrible and fight sequences felt so very fake and uninteresting. Some of the supporting cast was a let down, and maybe those characters and story arcs could’ve been culled to prevent the long 3 hour runtime. Prabhas’ and Saswata Chaterjee’s characters were indeed written terribly, there was no point in forcing them to do comedy. Actually, all dialogues were written uninspiringly. The heavy inspiration from existing movies and artists made the whole movie feel like a cheap knock-off instead of something truly original. Not sure why they went through the effort of having cast being racially diverse and characters believing in many religions without any of them being included in the main story arc. It was pointless to end the movie where it ended, there was zero closure for the audience.

Overall, I praise the effort, but there’s a long way to go before we have something truly homegrown and special.