Kalki 2898 AD combines Star Wars with Hindu myths and a pinch of RRR

The actor Amitabh Bachchan is a metaphorical giant of Indian cinema, a superstar of proportions that even put American A-list celebrities in the shade. In the Indian science fiction epic Kalki 2898 ADhis stature is literal: In his role as the 7-foot-tall immortal warrior Ashwatthama, the 81-year-old towers over his younger co-stars, all of whom are attractions in their own way. (A handy way for the uninitiated to measure an Indian actor’s relative fame is by the length of his appearance in a film – the bigger the name, the more elaborate the appearance.) The sheer number of stars in this film is overwhelming, but that’s not even the most ambitious thing about it.

Screenwriter and director Nag Ashwin says for Kalki 2898 AD as the ultimate science fiction epic. Its scope is huge, covering 6,000 years of mythological history. The running time is long, telling the first part of a two-part story over three jam-packed hours. (To be fair, Denis Villeneuve’s dune Films are not much shorter.) And the production was expensive – allegedly around 72 million US dollarsone of the biggest budgets ever used for an Indian film. The filmmakers hope it will be a crossover event, similar to the record-breaking success of SS Rajamouli RRRnot only within the different film industries of India (Bachchan is known as a Bollywood actor, while his co-stars Prabhas and Kamal Haasan work in Telugu and Tamil films respectively), but also internationally.

The look of the film, created almost entirely through CGI, will certainly be familiar to Western audiences, with elements reminiscent of the popular sci-fi franchises Blade Runner and, war of stars, The Matrix, dune, and especially Mad Max: Fury Road. The story is specifically Indian: it takes the Hindu myth of Kalki – the tenth and final incarnation of the god Vishnu, who will lead humanity into a new era of peace and justice – and transposes it into a dystopian science fiction setting. But while the references to magical weapons and folkloric heroes may not make sense to all but the most informed foreign viewers, the story arc follows the familiar beats of a chosen one tale.

This first chapter of the Kalki 2898 AD The saga spends much of its running time introducing its characters and its world. It begins with a caravan of refugees arriving in the futuristic city of Kasi, the last outpost of civilization after droughts and pollution have rendered most of the planet uninhabitable. Life is cheap in Kasi, where a single chicken egg fetches the same price as a human on the black market. The only exception is fertile women, who have become extremely valuable in this dystopian future world: whenever one is discovered, she is sold and shipped to the complex, a floating pyramid above the city where a wealthy minority hoards the few remaining natural resources.

SUM-80 (Deepika Padukone) is one of these women, and one of hundreds living as lab rats at the will of Supreme Yaskin (Haasan), a 200-year-old tyrant who prolongs his life by extracting a serum from the wombs of impregnated female prisoners. The women die in the process, but no matter; their bodies are thrown into an incinerator and new girls take their place. SUM-80 understandably wants to live, so she hides her pregnancy from everyone around her. But it’s already been five months, and the sadistic doctors running this so-called Project K will soon notice.

Outside the complex, things are grim in a different way, although the sympathetic bounty hunter Bhairava (Prabhas) does his best to lighten the mood. Indian films typically mix genres, and although Kalki 2898 AD is more serious than most Bollywood fare – there are no proper musical numbers, unfortunately, although the characters lip-sync to Santhosh Narayanan’s original songs – Bhairava and his witty AI companion Bujji (Keerthy Suresh) bring much-needed Star Wars-style comedic quips to the film. Bhairava is a Han Solo type, driven by self-interest and the pursuit of money or “units.” Like Han, he’s also a womanizer, as we learn when the similarly mischievous Roxie (Disha Patani) enters the narrative.

At first, it’s not clear how SUM-80, Bhairava, and the 6,000-year-old badass Ashwatthama, who spends most of the film hiding in a cave, are connected. But there’s no doubt that they’ll meet eventually, or that each of them will play their part in fulfilling the prophecy of a rebel group living in a hidden utopia called Shambhala. Eventually, the action shifts to the rebels’ sacred retreat. But first, SUM-80 must race through the wasteland, pursued by Supreme Yaskin’s lackeys and Bhairava, who plans to exchange this valuable hostage for entry into the complex.

Some of the digital backgrounds that VFX supervisor Praveen Kilaru and his team created for Kalki 2898 AD are absolutely stunning and science fiction fans who enjoy cool ships and cool vehicles will find plenty to keep them interested. (The design of Bujji, who can transform from a cool car into an even cooler fighting robot, is particularly impressive.)

But the fact that this is only the first part of a two-part story creates serious structural problems. The first two hours of the film pass at a brisk but leisurely pace, but the final hour tries to cram too much into an already overstimulating epic battle scene. It comes across as panicked and confused as it rushes through crucial plot developments and explanations.

Comparisons between Kalki And RRR are inevitable, if only because the former blatantly tries to repeat the success of the latter. But Nag Ashwin’s film lacks some of the elements that RRR so charming: There is no central bromance, no exciting dance sequences, and no sense of surprise. There is comedy, but it is limited to certain sections of the film, and there is much less romance and music than audiences would expect. It is still an entertaining ride with some cool visuals and exciting chases. But by channeling the seriousness of Western sci-fi films, Kalki 2898 AD loses some of the range that makes Indian films so special. Its aim is to get applause. Its complacency not so much.

Kalki 2898 AD is now playing in cinemas worldwide.