There\u2019s nothing original or particularly surprising about \u201cKalki 2898 AD,\u201d a polished and expensive-looking Telugu-language Indian science-fiction adventure. This big-budget fantasy, which grafts elements of \u201cThe Mahabharata\u201d onto American sci-fi touchstones like \u201cStar Wars\u201d and \u201cMad Max,\u201d brings to mind a few other recent Indian spectaculars, like \u201cBrahmastra Part One: Shiva\u201d and \u201cAdipurush.\u201d \u201cKalki 2898 AD\u201d succeeds where most others have flailed simply by giving its dystopian countermyth a sense of proportion to match its gigundo scale. Goofy, over-earnest, and just good enough where it counts, \u201cKalki 2898 AD\u201d outdistances its competition simply by digging deeper than expected into its patchy lore\u2019s rich melodramatic turf.<\/p>\n
More like the J.J. Abrams-helmed \u201cStar Wars\u201d sequels than anything George Lucas made, \u201cKalki 2898 AD\u201d takes place in a godless world with scarce resources, low birth rates, and no heroes except the self-interested. Supreme Yaskin (Kamal Haasan), a Palpatinian cyborg despot, rules the pseudo-Utopian Complex by proxy, through baby-faced Commander Manas (Saswata Chatterjee), an inexhaustible battalion of storm troopers, and a ton of amoral, bounty-seeking scavengers. Headlining star Prabhas plays one such scavenger, Bhairava, a happy-go-lucky mooch who owes money,\u00a0I mean credits, all around town.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, Bhairava stumbles into SUM-80 (Deepika Padukone), later renamed Sumathi, a pregnant refugee from the Complex\u2019s \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d-esque Project K laboratory complex. Bhairava will do anything to live in the Matrix-like Complex, and Sumathi has a big bounty on her head. She\u2019s also protected by Ashwatthama, played by a seven-foot tall Amitabh Bachchan, who\u2019s empowered by Herculean strength and on a centuries-old mission to protect Sumathi and her child, who may or may not be the messiah that will save the world from eternal darkness. Everybody chases after Sumathi, who, with the help of a few sympathetic strangers, crosses a vast wasteland to the Zion-like sanctuary of Shambala, guarded by the saintly Mariam (Shobhana) and an army of techno-spear-carrying soldiers.<\/p>\n
As you might imagine, the first half of \u201cKalki 2898 AD\u201d laboriously sets up what the back half nudges home. By that point, the movie\u2019s pan-Indian ensemble cast has slotted into their second-hand roles and is no longer teasing but rather declaring their story\u2019s grandeur. It\u2019s still thrilling to see a pantheon of mega-watt Indian stars, including the often-included but rarely so-well-venerated Bachchan, represented as the icons that their devoted fans already know them to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKalki 2898 AD\u201d eventually finds its rhythm and some urgency\u00a0after a few too many pseudo-comic lulls once Sumathi escapes the Complex, sliding down and clambering up Death Star-like sluices and tunnels and then escaping through an infernal trash compactor. When SUM-80 walks in slow-motion through a corridor of flamethrowers, we see an insubstantial character struggling to outdistance a star performer. When she emerges as Sumathi, a name given to her by two selfless conspirators, it\u2019s mostly because the story has become focused enough to transcend the actors\u2019 campy gestures. Several familiar and even predictable story beats are hit along the way and the movie eventually stops exactly where you might expect the first entry in a wannabe franchise to end up. But what starts as a crowded blockbuster eventually becomes a disarming exercise in style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s nothing original or particularly surprising about \u201cKalki 2898 AD,\u201d a polished and expensive-looking Telugu-language Indian science-fiction adventure. This big-budget fantasy, which grafts elements of \u201cThe Mahabharata\u201d onto American sci-fi touchstones like \u201cStar Wars\u201d and \u201cMad Max,\u201d brings to mind a few other recent Indian spectaculars, like \u201cBrahmastra Part One: Shiva\u201d and \u201cAdipurush.\u201d \u201cKalki 2898 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[36,35,44,51],"class_list":["post-1406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction-movies","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-fantasy","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}