For most Gen Z, the Ramayana is a tale heard from their parents or grandparents, having been born after Ramanand Sagar’s Doordarshan serial and the Japanese animation Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama. From that angle, it makes sense to present the epic in a way that appeals to the younger generation who have grown up on a diet of CGI-heavy superhero films.

But when you have no original ideas on how to upgrade a story that is a part of the country’s fabric, you should probably give it a wide berth. Instead, Adipurush director Om Raut borrows from every fantasy, science fiction and superhero film of the past few decades and comes up with a tale that is neither visually pleasing nor emotionally moving.

Adipurush begins with Raghava (Prabhas), his wife Janaki (Kriti Sanon) and his brother Lakshman (Sunny Singh) living in exile, the backstory being depicted in sketches during the opening credits. We open at The Wall with Ravana aka Lankesh (Saif Ali Khan), dressed like the Night Watch and with White Walker eyes, getting a boon from lord Brahma.

We are then transported to the middle of terrible CGI (take this as a common denominator for all that follows) as dementor-like creatures swarm Raghava at the (Black) Lake. An expressionless Raghava leaps in slo-mo, draws his super cool (yes, that one I have to give) bow in slo-mo and fells the dementor-like creatures, while Janaki (looking constipated) and Lakshman (looking disinterested) wait and watch from behind the Lakshman Rekha.

Meanwhile, behind the Black Gate of Mordor — sorry, Lanka — heavily guarded by orc-like creatures, Ravana, who is shredding on the tanpura in front of a giant Shiva Linga, is approached by his sister Surpanakha who has the hots for Raghava and wants his beautiful wife out of the way. Surpanakha, whose nose was cut by Lakshman’s arrow while she was trying to kill Janaki, convinces Ravana that only he deserves someone as beautiful as Janaki as queen.

Ravana is quick to go and kidnap Janaki who he escapes with on the back of a winged bat-like creature that looks a lot like the Nazgul from The Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Eagles Thorondor, erm sorry, Garuda gives chase but is vanquished and Ravana leaves Janaki under cherry blossoms (in Lanka!) in Ashok Vatika.

Raghava, with emotion in his heart (but not on his face), and a still disinterested Lakshman begin their hunt for Janaki and come across Ahalya (an Indira Gandhi lookalike) who points them to Sugriv and his vanar sena, bringing us to perhaps the best part of the film — Bajrang (Devdatta Nage) aka Hanuman. An unfortunate unitary method quiz later (it almost made me panic and reach for my notepad), Raghava wins over Bajrang and the entire vanar sena who join his quest to rescue Janaki and bring down Ravana.

The rest of the movie is all about the fight with Ravana (which is supposed to last 10 days but is over in one night) and is a CGI mess reminiscent of, but worse than, all the CGI battles we have been bombarded with on the big screen for years.

But bad CGI is the least of Adipurush’s problems. The film feels like a montage of events instead of an epic tale. Add to that some terrible dialogues — ‘Janaki ko chhor de aur Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram bol varna aaj khada hua hai kal leta hua milega,’ says Angad; ‘Kapra tere baap ka, tel tere baap ki,’ says Hanuman; ‘Bahut ho gaya tera bandar naach,’ says Indrajeet — and it is a disaster.

Apart from Bajrang, one can appreciate the characterisation of Ravana (despite his weird walk), whose 10 heads are treated like his split personalities, though even that devolves into pure illogical madness by the end of it.

There is one good thing that might come out of this epic disaster and that is it just might force people (I am one of them for sure) to go back to Ramanand Sagar’s Doordarshan serial or the Japanese animation to remember the joy that a reimagination of the Ramayana could be.