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#670 – Austin Powers in Goldmember
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
Film review #670
Director: Jay Roach
SYNOPSIS: British super spy Austin Powers receives word that his Father has gone missing, and must travel back in time to the 1970’s to rescue him. Teaming up with undercover FBI agent Foxxy Cleopatra, he investigates the supervillain Goldmember, who has some connection with the disappearance…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Austin Powers in Goldmember is 2002 film and the third in the Austin Powers franchise. The opening sequence sees Austin Powers on the set of a film based on him named “Austinpussy,” as we see famous actors playing the roles of all the characters, including Tom Cruise as Austin, Danny Devito as Mini-me etc. with Spielberg directing. This is probably one of the funniest moments of the film: it throws in so many cameos and recognisable faces that it’s impossible to divert your attention. The plot proper focuses on Austin learning that his Father has disappeared, and the villain Goldmember is somehow responsible. Travelling back in time to the 1970s, Austin teams up with undercover FBI agent Foxxy Cleopatra to stop Goldmember and unravel the mystery. The film is structured very similarly to the other Austin Powers films: like a series of skits loosely related to each other, and like the other films, some work better than others. On the whole though, the hits always outweigh the misses. Like the second film, Goldmember has a time travel aspect to the story, with Austin travelling back to the 1970’s this time instead of the 1960’s. The setting doesn’t play that much of a part of the film, but it is a little different from the 60’s setting of its predecessor. The time travel aspect does make things a bit confusing: often you can have no idea what time period a scene is in, but it’s not too much of an issue; you’re not watching this film for continuity. It does, however, throw up some new backstory for the characters in surprising ways, even if they barely make sense.
The humour continues the curve of the series with it incorporating more contemporary references and crude humour. As I mentioned in my review of the second film, the first one was very thorough in it’s spoofing of James Bond and spy films, so the humour does have to evolve and find new material. It’s still got enough of it, but it really becomes the base for other jokes, or to provide call-backs to the previous films. Goldmember leans a lot more into stereotypes and the humour is a bit more mean, and I think it doesn’t fit the series sometimes, and the more contemporary humour does make the film seem a little dated watching it in the present. There’s still plenty of good things about it and the humour is largely on par with the the other two, I just think there’s a few more misses this time around.
Goldmember‘s new cast are a good all-around addition: Beyoncé as Foxxy Cleopatra works really well, and adds something fresh to the humour and story. Michael Caine as Austin’s Father Nigel is a really good choice, and he pulls off the role very well, sometimes being more Austin Powers than Austin Powers. Goldmember, played again by Michael Myers and bringing the characters he plays in the film to four alongside Austin, Dr. Evil and Fat Bastard, doesn’t really make much impact as a villain or a character> I remember his “smoke and a pancake” line being infinitely quoted when the film was released, but that’s about it. Overall, Goldmember fits nicely into the Austin Powers franchise, and continues its brand of humour. The film is a narrative mess between moving between time travelling and whatnot, but it’s easy to overlook that. It changes enough to keep things fresh, but it pushes the humour into more crude and contemporary references that I think narrow it’s appeal, and don’t connect as easily. Still, however, a perfectly good spoof in keeping with the franchise.
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#669 – Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Film review #669
Director: Jay Roach
SYNOPSIS: Dr. Evil returns from being frozen orbit with a new plan to defeat his nemesis Austin Powers: he travels to 1969 to steal Austin’s “mojo” and render him powerless. Austin chases him back in time, and teams up with CIA agent Felicity Shagwell to once again thwart Dr. Evil’s plan for world domination…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is a 1999 film and a sequel to the 1997 Austin Powers film. Picking up right where the first film leaves off, Austin is on his honeymoon with Vanessa, when it turns out she is a fembot and tries to kill Austin. Destroying her and thus restoring his singlehood. Vanessa being a fembot all along makes zero sense in continuity, but like its predecessor, the film is a spoof that insists you don’t overthink about continuity and plotholes, and just “enjoy the ride.” This also goes for the time travel element of the story, as Basil and Austin turn to the camera, and tell the audience not to worry about it. That’s honestly the best way to do it in this type of film: you don’t want to get bogged down in the details and be thinking how it makes sense, rather than just enjoying the humour. Taking Austin back in time to 1969 puts Austin in his element, and refreshes the story instead of it being about Austin having to adjust to the 90’s again, which is a smart move and provides fertile ground for new material. In fact, I think this film actually flows better than the first one, which jumped around a bit too distinctly and made very little sense continuity-wise.
On the whole, the film is structured the same as the first one: With Michael Myers at the helm and following his experience on “Saturday Night Live,” the film is best treated as a series of related, somewhat connected skits. In this way, you can see that the skits are a bit of hit and miss: although the hits outweigh the misses by a good ratio, making an overall good experience. While the first film had the element of Vanessa being the prudish, straight-laced counter to Austin’s over-the-top colourful antics, this contrast never really got off the ground as a foundational plot-point, as Vanessa warmed up to Austin fairly quickly. Replacing Vanessa (Liz Hurley) with Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham), who is just as high-energy as Austin is, allows the film to just revel in what it does best: being colourful and fun.
A noticeable change in this film is that the humour pivots to more crude comedy, and incorporating contemporary references. The first film was very much focused on spoofing spy films and obviously 007, and it was very thorough is getting through all the material to spoof. As such, it makes sense to pivot the humour slightly differently, as it somewhat exhausted it’s subject matter. With one of the opening scenes featuring Jerry Springer and his talk show, this obviously feels a bit dated, but you get the idea. The inclusion of the character Fat Bastard, also played by Myers alongside Austin and Doctor Evil, adds in more crude humour, which is not going to appeal to everyone. I think he’s a character which has one joke, which is recycled a bit too much. Nevertheless, he has become a rather iconic character, so you’re mileage will vary with that. The film also has callbacks to jokes from the previous film, but I think they fail to iterate on them or do anything different, so they feel like recycling the same material.
Overall, I think The Spy Who Shagged Me is more or less on the same level as International Man of Mystery. I think it slightly improves over the original in terms of flow and plot structure, and revels in it’s own identity a bit more than focusing on spoofing other films. Where it is weaker is perhaps the incorporation of contemporary references and the crude humour that don’t have the more timeless, universal appeal. On the whole though, the film carries the franchise onward well.
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#668 – Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Film review #668
Director: Jay Roach
SYNOPSIS: Supervillain Dr. Evil is foiled once again by British Agent Austin Powers, and escapes by putting himself into cryogenic stasis in orbit. Austin Powers agrees to be frozen himself, until the time that Dr. Evil returns. Thirty years later in 1997, Dr. Evil remerges, and Austin is reanimated into a very different world from the sixties…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is a 1997 film. The film sees British agent Austin Powers reanimated from cryogenic stasis after his nemesis Dr. Evil has returned via the same method after thirty years. Austin has to readjust to life in the 1990’s, as well as stop Dr. Evil’s plan for world domination. The film is primarily a spoof of classic spy films; James Bond in particular to the surprise of no one. While the humour is perhaps of little surprise to anyone, in the sense that it is rather easy to poke fun at the 007 formula because it is so formulaic, Austin Powers is very thorough in that you end up feeling they really got as much mileage out of the subject matter as they possibly could have. Flipping the innuendo-based, nudge-nudge-wink of Bond to an openly raunchy and Horny Powers also provides a very different tone, so it doesn’t feel stuck in the shadows of it’s spoofed subject matter: it can be bright, colourful and funny in it’s own way.
Where this film shines strongest is it blends the sixties and nineties quite well, picking up humour and satire from both eras and playing it out well: as such, I think it hit a sweet spot upon release, in that it appealed to an older demographic with the sixties aesthetic, while still having enough modern humour that pokes fun at the older stuff for teens and young adults. Goldeneye in 1995 brought the James Bond films into the modern era by addressing the role of 007 in a post-Cold War world, and Austin Powers somewhat does the same thing, just obviously with a much more comedy-focused approach. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily new or surprising here that lesser films have done before, but everything is brought together well, and full of colour and energy to make entertaining from start to finish.
The plot in this film is obviously a secondary concern, but taking a closer look at it, the film barely flows at all; it often feels like a set of loosely connected skits featuring the characters. It zips around the different locations and characters without any real regard for continuity, but like I say, it’s not too much of a concern. The film is mostly about throwing Austin and Dr. Evil into silly situations, which it does well. Mike Myers plays both the role of Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, sharing a different type of humour with each: Powers with his raunchy, straightforwardness, and Dr. Evil as a parody of Blofeld having to accommodate his evil plans to a world that sees Evil in a different way, and also having to deal with being a father. As I say, it’s varied enough to keep things interesting, and when a scene’s humour doesn’t pay off, it quickly moves onto the next one anyway. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery perhaps treads old ground parodying the oft-parodied spy franchise, but keeps it fresh with it’s quick humour that never lingers, and it’s variety that appeals across a wide audience. I wasn’t blown away by the humour, but it avoids becoming stale at any point, so it’s perfectly entertaining from beginning to end.
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#667 – Archenemy (2020)
Archenemy (2020)
Film review #667
Director: Adam Egypt Mortimer
SYNOPSIS: A homeless vagabond wanders the city, who claims that he is a superhero that has lost his superpowers after arriving from another dimension. He meets a teenage boy who is having trouble with a local crime boss, and the two team up to try and right some wrongs…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Archenemy is a 2020 sci-fi film. A homeless ruffian who calls himself Max Fist claims to be a superhero who lost his powers after arriving on Earth from another dimension. A teenage boy known as Hamster wants to be an investigative journalist, and thus becomes interested in Max Fist’s story. However, Hamster and his Sister are in trouble with a local crime boss, and Hamster and Max form an unlikely alliance and friendship as they work together to help one another. The premise of this film is fairly simple, centring around an unlikely friendship that is a familiar tale and easy to grasp, but handles it well for the most part. While the opening relies on a typical setup to establish it’s premise and characters, it branches out a bit more later on.
The main issue that pervades this film is around a very poorly written story and script: in the first instance, there’s just so much of the story told through exposition and dialogue that just weighs everything down, and breaks the first rule of cinema of showing not telling. As such, the film is constantly slowed down or paused to reel off bloated dialogue, and any sense of momentum is constantly disrupted. Action scenes are competent, but lack the scale and spectacle due to the limited budget. Archenemy has a good idea attached to it, but it’s over-reliance on long dialogues and exposition constantly ruin any sense of energy and momentum the film may be able to generate.
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#666 – The Devil Conspiracy (2022)
The Devil Conspiracy (2022)
Film review #666
Director: Nathan Frankowski
The Devil Conspiracy is a 2022 sci-fi film. Essentially, the plot concerns the battle between Michael and Lucifer, and a present-day cult seeking to revive Lucifer, leading Michael to take possession of a priest’s body to stop them. Sounds like a good old-fashioned religious epic right? The film starts off with an epic battle between Michael and Lucifer, ending with Lucifer being chained up in Hell. I think that’s what happened anyway, because it’s almost impossible to work out what happens amidst the extremely poor lighting that obviously hides the lack of scenery and the poor CG. Cutting away from this to the present day, we see a woman named Laura visiting her friend father Marconi at the Shroud of Turin on display. Meanwhile, a biotech firm has been successfully able to clone geniuses from history from their DNA, and auctioning the clones off to wealthy buyers, as demonstrated in a sequence in the Sistine Chapel where a child clone of Stradivari gives a violin performance. It’s very much Jurassic Park with geniuses instead of velociraptors, and it’s a premise that is at least interesting and has potential. However, it never gets mentioned again, as the biotech firm is secretly a Lucifer worshipping cult that wants to get the Shroud of Turin for themselves to get Jesus’s DNA, and recreate him as a vessel for Lucifer or something. They kidnap Laura to impregnate her or possess her with Lucifer…or both, it’s not really to clear, as she is imprisoned in the cult’s secret headquarters to give birth to the child, meanwhile Michael possesses the body of father Marconi, after he is killed during the theft of the Shroud, as he tries to find Laura and the child.
There’s obviously a lot of interesting elements that are at play here in the film, between religious epics and sci-fi cloning. Unfortunately when the film settles down, it mostly just revolves around Laura stuck in this barren facility occasionally trying to escape through clinical corridors, and Michael being imprisoned in Hell, and also trying to escape; although it’s quite difficult to tell again because of the severe lack of lighting. The core of the movie then just becomes a dull run-around with no real thrills, action or epic battles befitting the subject matter. The acting is less than stellar, the characters are fairly dull, and it drags on for nearly two hours just waiting for Laura to give birth. The worst aspect of the film is probably the lighting, particularly in the sequences in Hell, where you barely see anything that is going on, as mentioned earlier, to obviously obscure the lack of scenery detail and the bad special effects. These scenes are almost impossible to parse and work out just where they are set or what is going on. There’s obviously some thought gone into the colour of what little lighting there is to represent different characters, but it’s nowhere near enough. I can’t really find much positive to say about this film: it has some interesting concepts which it lays out in the outset, then just throws them all away to bring the film to a standstill for the remainder. It is, overall, a dull watch that fails to justify it’s runtime.
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#665 – The Gene Generation (2007)
The Gene Generation (2007)
Film review #665
Director: Pearry Reginald Teo
SYNOPSIS: In a dystopian future, Michelle works as assassin while trying to keep her younger brother out of trouble. When he gets into trouble with a ruthless gang, he inadvertently acquires a DNA hacker, a device that can cure any disease by rewriting the victim’s DNA. Powerful people apparently want this device, so Michelle gets dragged into he brother…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The Gene Generation is a 2005 sci-fi film. The plot centres around assassin for hire Michelle, who tries to keep her younger Brother out of trouble as he continues to get into bigger trouble. That’s the best way I can describe this film: the details are lost amidst the continual circling of this one point. The story opens with some exposition about a device called a DNA hacker, which could cure any disease by rewriting a person’s DNA, or it would kill the user if they were not programmed for it’s use, which seems like a bit of an odd device. Anyway, for some reason, this has led to a dystopic future where everything is really dark and grim for some reason.
In this dismal world, Michelle is one of the best assassins-for-hire. She tries to keep her younger brother out of trouble, but naturally, he keeps getting into it, and inadvertently comes into possession of the last DNA hacker. Michelle is clearly meant to be a bad-ass, and she does at least get some cool fight scenes. This is clearly meant to be balanced out with the emotional scenes showing her struggle with trying to protect her brother, but the trouble is this seems wholly unbalanced: every other scene we see Michelle weeping that she is unable to protect him, and this constant interruption fails to really establish her character as the bad-ass she is supposed to be. This constant back-and-forth also fails to take the plot anywhere or build tension, as it all just seems like the same cycle of her Brother getting into trouble, and Michelle having to bail him out. There’s an overarching story of some villain wanting to use the DNA hacker to resurrect someone, but there’s so much other little stuff going on that as mentioned that it gets lost, and the other events of the film barely build up to it.
The world itself is your mid-2000’s typical experience, with everyone dressing in leather, and a dystopian world rendered with PlayStation 2-era graphics. Also, everything is dark…really dark; probably so you can’t see the CG properly. There’s very little to recommend The Gene Generation: the story goes nowhere, the characters are underdeveloped, and everything is just so dark you can barely see half the screen most of the time. There’s a few decent fight scenes, but in a post-Matrix world of people in leather beating up other people in leather, it’s just not that memorable or unique.
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#664 – Bombhaat – The Power of Time (2020)
Bombhaat – The Power of Time (2020)
Film review #663
Director: Raghavendra Varma
SYNOPSIS: Ever since he was born, Vicky has caused everyone around him to experience bad luck. Now a student in robotics engineering, he becomes wrapped up in a malicious plot involving his Professor friend, his daughter, and his own girlfriend…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Bombhaat – The Power of Time is a 2020 Indian sci-fi film. Vicky is a robotics engineering student who has been cursed with bad luck ever since he was born, to the point that his parents don’t want him in the house when something important is happening. While he has troubles with his girlfriend, a mad scientist is out to get his Godfather for some sort of evil scheme, dragging Vicky into a whole host of shenanigans. Mixing romance, comedy and science-fiction, Bombhaat is a mish-mash of ingredients that are far too diluted to stand on their own or as a credible story. The romance has the depth of a puddle, the comedy is incredibly bland and never actually stretches to make an actual joke, and the science-fiction is just scraps of different things thrown together, most notably a villain who is a complete cartoon character, and just doesn’t fit anything else in the film. It somewhat feels like the filmmakers took inspiration from Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog, but that’s a completely different film with a completely different target audience. I think this film is for young adults, but the comedy is just so bland and timid it lacks any kind of impact.
Vicky’s relationship with his Godfather, the scientist who the villain wants to steal his inventions from, definitely tries to emulate a Marty/Doc Brown dynamic from Back to the Future, but has no chance to develop anything meaningful. By the time the film gets to it’s actual main plot point concerning the Professor’s android daughter that the mad scientist wants to kidnap and sell to military contractors, too much time has passed to rescue the film. There’s little moments of flair and style, but nothing overarching, just bits and pieces that always feel out of place. There’s a few neat action scenes, but nothing special. Overall I just felt a general sense of boredom watching this film: it really fails to inspire in anyway. The story structure is all over the place, the characters are weak and no coherent style or direction means nothing really sticks.
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#663 – Timemaster (1995)
Timemaster (1995)
Film review #663
Director: James Glickenhaus
SYNOPSIS: In a post-apocalyptic 2007 United States, young Jesse’s parents are kidnapped by a race of time-travelling aliens. He is helped by one of the aliens to rescue them from a game of virtual reality played by the aliens that is fought to the death, and takes the chance to stop the nuclear war that destroyed civilisation in the process…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Timemaster is a 1995 sci-fi film. This is where I’d usually recap the plot of the film but…the big problem with this film is that is simply incomprehensible. The beginning of the film is set in a post-apocalyptic U.S. in 2007 after a soldier went mad in the White House kitchen and launched nuclear weapons. Jesse is living in a desert outpost with his younger sister and their parents. One day some people show up in a spaceship that might be aliens and kidnap Jesse’s parents to take part in a virtual reality game in the future. One of the maybe aliens from the future helps Jesse travel through time to rescue his parents and also prevent the nuclear apocalypse. Incorporating time travel into a film’s story always runs the risk of complicating it and generating plotholes, and this film suffers from that immensely, even before it introduces the aliens and whatnot. Jesse travels through time to the Wild West, where he saves his Father; or is it actually virtual reality? When he time travels does he inhabit the body of his ancestor, since people seem to recognise him? I honestly can’t tell. There is no coherence between the different settings, too many characters, and too many things going on.
This film definitely wants to be the next Back to the Future. The young protagonist makes friends with a much older mentor who allows him to travel through time, including to the past, future and the wild west. That’s apparently not enough though, as they also add the whole virtual reality death-game thing as well. Jesse is clearly set up to be the next Marty McFly, but he seems a bit too young and he’s not that great of an actor. Although it’s clear that he got the role not based on his acting ability, but because he is the son of the director, and actually named Jesse, alongside his on-screen sister also being played by his sister. Isiah, the mentor and obvious Doc Brown equivalent is played by Pat Morita AKA Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid. His character clearly leans on that mentor role he is most famous for, but his performance here in no way stands up to that, and feels very weak by comparison. Annie is Jesse’s romantic interest who he picks up in the Wild West, and who does absolutely nothing in the film beyond following Jesse around; they have no scenes alone, no character development, nothing. I don’t know what the point of her character is. Eventually we get into the future or alien world or whatever, where the virtual reality life-or-death game is played. the winners get a blue goo that extends there life, and the losers get turned into the blue goo, with people betting a certain amount of time (in the form of said blue goo) on the matches. You could probably base the whole film around this, but it’s just another plot element amongst the mess of others. The Chairman of this sport (if you can call it that) is played by Michael Dorn AKA Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Maybe you won’t recognise him without the makeup, but you’ll definitely recognise that iconic voice. Unfortunately, his character isn’t really fleshed out enough to make a decent villain: we don’t really get to know anything about him.
This is, ultimately a kids film, packed with lots of action and adventure, and while it does have a lot of flashy effects and contraptions that would appeal to this audience, it’s all too overwhelming to piece together. There is at least one swear word too, so I’m not sure it is meant to be a kids film. Maybe it, again, is trying to emulate Back to the Future by having a bit of an edge, but there’s not enough here to do that, especially, as mentioned, that the lead character is too young to really balance being a kid and young adult, like Marty McFly was. Overall, Timemaster is a confusing and haphazard mess, that, despite some recognisable actors, fails to make any of the mish-mash of its ideas stick, or its characters interesting. It comes across as a ploy to get the director’s children into an acting career by taking the lead roles; a move that seems to have spectacularly backfired insomuch as James Glickenhaus retired from filmmaking after this film. While seeing stars like Pat Morita and Michael Dorn in the film make it a novelty, that’s really the only thing you can get out of this incomprehensible, budget Back to the Future-derivative mess.
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#662 – Viral (2016)
Viral (2016)
Film review #662
Director: Ariel Schulman; Henry Joost
SYNOPSIS: When a parasitic infection starts to spread in a suburb, the entire town is quarantined, and Stacey and Emma, two sisters, are caught within while their parents are out of town. As people they know are taken over by the parasite, which turns them into aggressive , ravenous monsters, the survivors must find a way to survive…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Viral is a 2016 sci-fi horror film. Stacey and Emma are Sisters that move to a Californian suburb with their parents. When an outbreak of ‘worm flu’ hits the area, the Sisters are trapped in the quarantine zone, while their parents are away, and must find a way to survive as their neighbours are infected and turn into ravenous, aggressive monsters. Following the typical script of a viral/infected outbreak, the two Sisters must try and survive amidst a host of typical teenage problems. While a low-budget film with not much in the way of flashy setups or large-scale events, the film at least has a coherent narrative focusing on the two sisters, and hinging everything around that. The rest of the teen drama stuff rarely hits home, and lacks a similar investment.
The premise of the film is revealed quite clearly, although perhaps a bit on the nose that Emma and Stacey’s Father is a biology teacher who just so happens to be an expert in parasitic infections. While the effects are mostly low key, I found the gore and bodily infections very visceral and disturbing; which is undoubtedly what is intended. While the dynamic between the two sisters drives the story along, other plot elements lag behind, and other characters seem to hang about doing very typical things that don’t distinguish them. The film loses its way towards the ending, and I don’t think had any real idea what to do to conclude it, so it just…doesn’t.
While Viral is for the most part a very typical outbreak horror film, it does provide some entertainment at its core, and some nasty effects to make its atmosphere stick. Outside of that though, there’s not much that is memorable or interesting amidst the many other films like it.
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#661 – Kalki 2898 A.D.
Kalki 2898 A.D. (2024)
Film review #661
Director: Nag Ashwin
SYNOPSIS: In the year 2898 A.D., a post-apocalyptic Earth is ruled by the supreme ruler Yaskin from The Complex: the last surviving city on Earth. Ashwatthama, who has been cursed to wander the Earth as an immortal for six thousand years, meets a young girl named Raia, who escapes being taken to The Complex. She unknowingly brings him the gem from his forehead that was taken all those years ago, and when he places it back where it belongs, finds out that a woman is bearing the prophesised Kalki, who will bring about a new age. The two then seek out to find this woman and protect her from Yaskin’s evil forces…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Kalki 2898 A.D. is a 2024 Indian sci-fi epic. As a starting point, the film is heavily based around the rich Hindu scriptures and religious texts, featuring various figures and events. It’s not wholly necessary to know about them in order to get into this film, as you can get the general gist of the characters and the backstory, but it definitely feels overwhelming at the beginning of the film if you know next to nothing about it (like me). Essentially, the film is set in the year 2898, in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that you’ve seen in many times before, so that part is at least familiar. Ashwatthama, an immortal who has been cursed by Kirshna to wander Earth for six thousand years after attempting to kill the princess Uttawa’s child, and his divine gem is taken from him. Having to watch humanity’s decline over that period, Ashwatthama is reunited with his divine gem by a chance encounter with a young girl named Raia, he learns that the prophesised child Kalki, is to be born to a pregnant woman, and heads out to protect her, as Kalki is destined to usher in a new age for humanity. If I had to compare it to Western cinema releases, I would say it’s a mix of Mad Max, Marvel’s Avengers, and The Lord of the Rings. It’s made to be an epic, featuring a large cast of characters, large scale structures, locations, battles, the works. Clocking in at nearly three hours, it’s a fairly standard runtime for Indian cinema, but definitely the kind of runtime reserved for the aforementioned epics in Western cinema. The world is established fairly well, alongside the situation of the people living there. Again, it might be fairly typical if you’re used to western cinema, but it is something less undertaken in Indian films, and I think the incorporation of Hindu scripture helps with that transition.
The problem with the film is that there are too many disparate characters that the film introduces, and spends the first half of the film wandering about the world as the characters bump into each other rather aimlessly. As mentioned, the world is established decently enough, but there’s not too much direction with regards to what we are supposed to be doing there. The second half of the film brings things together more, towards a finale filled with epic battles and a showdown with the villain. The epic battle between two opposing forces really does feel like something you would see in Lord of the Rings or some such, leading me to feel that the film just imitated a typical Hollywood-style climax. Even worse, the film describes itself at the end as continuing in the “Kalki Cinematic Universe,” which just reinforces the point that it’s trying to mold itself into a very specific format, and not trying to be self-contained. The trouble with trying to square up to Hollywood blockbusters is that it never looks or feels on par with the; inviting the comparisons, but all the worse for it. The CG is noticeably rough at points, and the large-scale shots don’t quite look convincing enough. The characters never really come into their own either, as they’re often spaced out and large amounts of time passes in between seeing them, and take too long in establishing where there place is in the film. The big example of this is Bhairava, a bounty hunter is a scoundrel and a villain right up until the last scene of the film, where he suddenly flips.
Kalki 2898 A.D. is an ambitious cinematic attempt that synthesises Western cinema epics with traditional Hindu foundations. Having the biggest budget of any Indian film at the time of release, it aims high, but a muddled story, awkward pacing, and disparate characters fail to really bring everything together, and elevate it to the level of its ambition. Might be more interesting to someone who appreciates the incorporation of Hindu scripture and figures, but will probably draw comparisons with more successful films to Western viewers.
