OMG we found this movie absurdly long and often tedious to watch. Sure, the action LOOKS great, and some of the songs (the end sequence in particular) were super fun. But also this film does not know anything about subtlety & it seriously makes Fast & Furious look like high art. Also endless simplistic jingoism that doesn’t consider any of the complexities on the ground (not that it’s wrong WRT the Brits, of course).
Think I would have enjoyed music videos of the songs more than the movie.
Yeah I know I’m hugely in the minority here. I’m apparently a heartless grumpy old guy (at least on this) 😀
After we saw the trailer for RRR before Everything Everywhere, I turned to my daughter and said, “I guess there’s something to be said for the complete absence of subtlety.” Still haven’t seen this, but I will for-sure go into it expecting none of that! :)
Very much this. It’s the Independence Day of Indian cinema: all candy, no vegetables.
I’m curious to hear more about this. I confess to not being particularly well informed on the history or geopolitics of the situation beyond very broad strokes, but is popular revolt against a foreign regime in the name of self-governance jingoism?
Not that aspect, no. But the history depicted is also very streamlined & doesn’t much attempt to address any of the serious internal disagreements that led to the partitioning of India and are still ongoing & important.
From what I can tell, the partitioning of India took place in 1947. This movie takes place in 1920, and is a fictitious story based on the events at that time. Why would they get into the topic of partitioning at all??
So, finally got around to watching Rajamouli’s Eega, on the basis of it being described as his version of The Fly. It’s definitely not that, and I wasn’t really on board until about halfway through, but at that point it totally won me over.
Up until the point where Bindhu finds out the fly is Nani, I was getting kind of annoyed with the usual Bollywood/Tollywood tropes/stylisms, but from that moment on it made me appreciate that it wasn’t a Western movie. If this were made in Hollywood, the second half would have been about Nani figuring out how to become human again, and Bindu helping him, and there would have been lots of personal growth and learning about themselves. Instead, he tells her he’s going to straight up murder him, and she is totally down with that. And the training montage was gloriously silly too.
We watched this right after I got a new surround bar setup that does Atmos. This movie is a freaking tech demo for Atmos it’s nuts. I haven’t been that entertained by a movie in a long time. And I generally hate movies over 2 hours long, let alone 3.
I mean it’s designed to have an intermission at literally an hour and a half in, theaters just need to show it that way. But even if they don’t, not being able to see it with a raucous crowd feels like missing out. Netflix can’t give you this:
I saw it in a relatively small arthouse theater in San Francisco, and the crowd almost exploded at the end of Act 1. Truly an amazing theatrical experience!
It’s playing in an IMAX theater here in the Bay Area in two weeks, so I may need to buy tickets. Strangely, it’s only playing in a tiny Alamo Drafthouse theater in L.A., and only for two days. I thought Los Angeles was a big moviegoing city!
That scene is the best in the film, and I say that as someone who ordinarily hates random dance scenes in Indian films (and Western musicals for that matter). So damn catchy.
