Bahubali: The Beginning

Does size matter? Not quite. In 2012, S.S. Rajamouli made Eega aka Makkhi, which eme­rged as a thoroughly enjoyable ride of a film with a small fly for the protagonist. Everything gets scaled up in his new outing, Bahubali, save entertainment. Despite the talent that has gone into making this larger-than-life spectacle, it doesn바카라™t prove to be half as bewitching as Eega. Yes, there are some incr­edibly well-mounted sce­nes and eye-catching imagery바카라”the child Shiva held above the water by the wounded mother figure Sivagami (Ramya), the hero Shiva바카라™s (Prabhas) ride up the waterfall, his romance with Avantika (Tamannaah) in the midst of the butterflies, the eye-popping battle scenes..... Howe­ver, this Amar Chitra Kathaesque myt­h­olo­gical tale (about two cousins vying for the kin­gdom of Mahishmati) served up in the Lord of The Rings mould does not quite hold and has a 바카라˜been there, already seen in Hollywood바카라™ feel to it. Cliches abound: for the hero the warrior woman has to transform into a sultry seductress, and the enemy has to be weird, tribal brutes. Then you have Anushka Shetty바카라™s cakey makeup. Most characters remain unidimensional, save the trusted lieutenant Kad­appa, my one takeaway from the film. The flashbacks, the backstories wit­hin backstories, the oddly structured narrative and the abrupt, cliffhanger end would have worked if the second of this two-part epic was to follow quickly. Alas, it바카라™s still a year away.