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Kalki 2898 AD Movie Review

Kalki 2898 AD is a 2024 Indian Telugu-language science fiction film directed by Nag Ashwin and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Prabhas. It’s a very messy, but undeniably fun flick.

The future of those in the dystopian city of Kasi is altered when the destined arrival of Lord Vishnu’s final avatar launches a war against darkness. This is one of the highest-grossing Indian films of the year and the country’s biggest-budget film of all time. And you can definitely see that in the final product that features some of the best CGI of the year, which are much better than in numerous Hollywood movies actually.

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This is an epic movie for sure. It’s a spectacle that features stupendous world building, strong attention to detail and very imaginative imagery. All of these elements managed to elevate the story about its familiar constraints. And oh boy, are they familiar. They basically mixed every big Hollywood franchise that you can think of, being especially reminiscent of ‘Dune’ in its villains and ‘Mad Max’ in its weaponry and vehicles. But there is also a healthy dose of Indian mythology thrown in for good measure.

The end result is honestly a lot of fun and a film that worked more often than it didn’t. It’s too action-heavy for my tastes, but when the action scenes are this well executed, there is no denying the movie’s fun factor. The action set pieces are cool, exciting and wildly entertaining. The movie features a lot of superheroics and fantasy mythological elements along with the hard SF ideas. It’s also both very Western and highly Indian. All of this mixing of ideas and styles led to a whiplash effect that to me mostly landed on the positive side of things.

I would have preferred more focus on characters as the movie was focusing a lot on plot when the action slowed down instead of the characters. It also featured way too much exposition, especially in that clunkily written, though intriguing first act. I still preferred the first half over the second one that became too bombastic for its own sake.

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But going back to the characters, they definitely needed more development. But the strong cast of well-known actors elevated their characters somewhat. Amitabh Bachchan is very memorable in an intriguing role while the main villain was underwritten, but definitely quite menacing. The female characters did not get much to do, but weren’t stereotypical nonetheless, so that was a big plus.

The standout, however, is Prabhas himself. It was a great idea to cast him in the role of Bhairava, who is by far the most interesting character of the bunch. I loved him in the role and his comedic delivery was excellent. Some of his scenes were wildly entertaining and he brought so much charisma and energy to the movie that really needed it. I also loved Bujji the robot. This robot made me laugh out loud a couple of times and their dynamic was so good. The movie really needed more of these fun scenes.

Kalki 2898 AD looks and sounds great. The score is very strong, though there aren’t any musical numbers here, but there are extensive musical cues that were mostly quite entertaining. The dialogue is only okay and the characterization passable. The script is messy too. But the movie is imaginative and fun and we should welcome India to the epic SF stage with this well-intentioned effort.

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