The Indian film industry doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to science-fiction movies, neither story-wise nor visually. And it is unfortunate that when a film finally gets the visuals bang on, the story is so derivative that finding anything you haven’t seen in a Hollywood film is an uphill battle.
Kalki 2898 AD, directed by Nag Ashwin, is a mishmash of Hollywood science-fiction movies across the years, from Star Wars to Dune, Blade Runner to Mad Max: Fury Road. Set in a futuristic Kasi, one of the last remaining post-apocalyptic cities, Kalki begins with the battle of Kurukshetra where Krishna curses Dronacharya’s son Ashwatthama (a de-aged Amitabh Bachchan who looks too unreal to be taken seriously) with eternal life till the coming of the Kalki avatar, whose birth he has to ensure.
Fast forward 6,000 years and Kasi is a city of hunger (nothing grows in the barren lands but old women still eat beautiful green paan), thirst (there is no water but there seems to be alcohol), poverty and lawlessness. Bounty hunters (The Mandalorian comes to mind) rule the city trying to get enough credits to buy their way into the ‘Complex’, a floating inverted triangle ruled by the Supreme leader Yaskin (Kamal Haasan) who levitates in a water-filled chamber with tubes stuck to his bodies (anyone else thinking he is a cross between Baron Harkonnen and Immortan Joe?).
One of the bounty hunters is Bhairava (Prabhas), a scallywag who owes a lot of people a lot of money (imagine a cross between Boba Fett and Han Solo), and a renowned fighter with fans of his own. Of course he has a car with a droid (imagine a female C3PO without the body), can conjure up multiple versions of him (ala Loki) and holds nothing sacred except credits that will get him into the Complex.
Bhairava hits the jackpot when a bounty is announced for a five-month pregnant woman, later named Sumati (Deepika Padukone), who runs away from the lab within the Complex that impregnates fertile women hoping that the pregnancy will stick (yes, Mad Max: Fury Road; no, there is no Furiosa). But Sumati is not just any pregnant woman. Remember Krishna’s curse on Aswatthama? Yep, Sumati is pregnant with the Kalki avatar, the messianic leader who will deliver the world from suffering according to myths.
This is how Prabhas ends up facing off with Big B and getting beaten to an inch of his life. Bhairava wants the woman and Ashwatthama (Big B made 8 feet tall and an enhanced baritone) will do anything to protect her. The face-offs between the two are very one-sided, given that Aswatthama has other-wordly strength and abilities, until the end, when the baddies led by Supreme’s minion Manas (Saswata Chatterjee, who strides around in a Darth Vader-like cape) come for Sumati, and it’s revealed that Bhairava is actually Karna reincarnated.
Most of the actors — and there are plenty of noteworthy cameos, including Dulquer Salmaan, SS Rajamouli and Ram Gopal Varma — have very little to do other than Prabhas, who is great in the action sequences, and charming and funny when he is not fighting but it does become too much when the first half is all Prabhas talking or showing off. Amitabh Bachchan gets a solid role too, and it is great to see the action star of yesteryears performing gravity-defying stunts. He lends the character of Ashwatthama much-needed gravity in a mostly unbelievable scenario. And it is definitely fun to see the two clashing.
None of the others get much to do. Deepika is reduced to being a damsel in distress, who looks beautiful and graceful but, well, always distressed. Disha Patani shows up to add a little oomph as one of Prabhas’s love interests, and then disappears. Kamal Haasan floats and looks mean but doesn’t do much else. Saswata enjoys his role as a baddie but the character is so campy that it becomes caricaturish.
That is not to say that Kalki doesn’t have its moments. The first half of the 180-minute film does tend to drag, but things pick up just before the interval and the film becomes more engrossing. The fight sequences, though overlong, are entertaining with high-end sci-fi battle gear and weapons. The weaving in of Indian mythology with all the heavy borrowing from Hollywood adds little originality. And one is left wishing that we would come up with something original when it comes to science fiction at some point.
