Review of Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva (2022) by Ylkvader — 10 Oct 2022

• Let me get to the good part first. The visuals are wonderful. I highly recommend watching this on a big screen. It's on par with the visual grandeur I expect from big-budget movies like this. Kudos to Cinematographer Pankaj Kumar and the team for pulling this off.

• The world of Astraverse is quite intriguing. The powers, the individuals who are associated with the powers are ripe for a potential franchise. • The first 15-20 minutes do a fantastic job of setting up the conflict point of the movie.

• The performances by Ranbir Kapoor, Big B and Mouni Roy stood out for me. Especially Ranbir Kapoor is in his element as the titular character. So is Big B in his Obiwan-like character. Mouni Roy was surprisingly good performance-wise.

• Loved the action sequences too. Especially the interval and climax ones. They were visually dazzling too. Special mention to the background score by Simon Franglen which did the heavy lifting at times.

• The second half was considerably good compared to the first half for me, mainly due to the focus on the conflict point and the Astraverse.

• After the first 15-20 minutes, the movie nosedives considerably. The love story was the weakest link in this movie. Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor had great chemistry, but the writing was so sub-par in these portions. • Although there were occasional glimpses of the conflict point in the first half. It wasn't that engaging and felt overlong tbh, the interval portions came at the time when my interest started to fade away.

• The dialogues were so bare-bones and felt that they were aimed at kids. Imagine If Obiwan explained about Lightsaber as "Yaar, they are blue tube lights which do brum brum sounds".

• They are exactly like that, I am not even exaggerating. My word! They lowered the impact of the proceedings and the Astraverse.

• There were so many plot devices in this movie. It was so convenient at times which is a direct effect of Lethargic writing. • I mean you could have set up the proceedings to lead up to that event. Nothing of that sort, just convenient plot devices. • During the entirety of it's run time, I liked only two characters whose faces were not even visible in the movie. Rest of the characters ranged from bland to forgettable. Hero was basically the luke Skywalker of harry potter without the distinctive character traits.

• Overall, Brahmastra is visually fantastic but it's just a soft thud rather than a knockout punch due to its bare-bones dialogues and plot devices.