Just 1 word can be used to describe the movie- POOR. 45 minutes into the movie when you start looking at your watch you know that something went wrong somewhere.



Raavan is one of those movies where everything could have gone right. One of the best directors, arguably the best music director, nice concept, a grand epic to base it upon, breathtaking locations, powerful star cast and what not. But this is 1 of the few projects where everything went wrong. Direction is poor, music is average, acting is ordinary and it would be a shame to call it an adaptation of Ramayana. It seems like some elements of the epic were desperately inserted into the movie to get some free publicity by promoting it as a modern adaptation of Ramayana. The only saving grace for the movie is cinematography. The locations are breathtaking and you have to give it to the cast and crew for filming almost 90% of the film drenched in water.


The 1st half of the movie is dull and slow. It begins at a slow pace and maintain that till the intermission. Thankfully for the viewers things get a bit interesting in 2nd half but fails to keep the viewer interested. The story unfolds at such a pace that you don't want to know what will happen next, you just want it to get over.


Acting specially of the lead cast is ordinary. Abhishek bachchan fails to leave an impact on the viewers. With the make-up and close camera shots even a child could have done that job. His actions seem to be forced and overdone. Aishwarya can't act which was evident from the trailer itself but her acting in the movie is irritating to say the least. Extremely poor dialogues doesn't help her cause either. Vikram starts off ordinarily but his overall act is OK. Anyways he hasn't got much to do here. Govinda who could have been a show stopper here shockingly doesn't even have a role to talk about. His entry scene and specially the lines he say at start to Vikram may give users goosebumps and raises expectation sky high. But apart from that Govinda doesn't have any significant scene in the movie! Mani Ratnam should really explain to people why he wrote such a poor character for someone who was supposed to play "Hanuman" in the adaptation. Only 2 actors that pulled it off were Ravi kishan and Priyamani. Ravi kishan played his part effortlessly and Priyamani gave one of the strongest performances in just 10 minutes of screen time.


And considering the movie a modern adaptation of Ramayana is just nonsense. What sort of adaption is it where "Ram" is not good, "Raavan" is not bad, "Shrupnakha" is the victim!, "Lakshman" is the culprit and "Hanuman" doesn't have any significance. The so called "Raavan" doesn't have any traits like the original one so the characters in the movie are made to say idiotic dialogues like "Sir log kehte hain Beera (Raavan) ek saath 10-10 jagah rehta hai! " to force the audience to believe in the character.


And I couldn't stop myself from mentioning it here. Check the jump of Aishwarya rai from the cliff. Such ordinary effects make you wonder if it is really a Mani ratnam movie or you are watching some low budget movie.


To conclude Mani ratnam totally messed it up this time. If you miss this one you wouldn't have missed much.


Rating- 4/10