Story:
Maheshwari (Anushka) is born in a once in a lifetime nakshatram. Whoever marries her will get power to rule over the pancha bhootalu. Andhakasura (Ravi Shankar) is a rakshas and he comes to know about this and wants to marry her.
Meanwhile Malllikarjuna (Akkineni Nagarjuna) is born with the God’s blessing. He is karanajanmudu and is born to save Maheshwari and marry her. There are some twist and turns to this basic storyline with some cool visual effects and that’s it about the film.
Performances:
Akkineni Nagarjuna plays it to the galleries in this outing. He mouths cool lines, romances heroine and finally fights the evil in his usual style. He does them well.
Anushka has to look glamorous and desirable nothing beyond that barring a few scenes and is pretty fine. It’s a regular outing for both hero and heroine.
The surprise package here is Ravi Shankar. He rocked as Andhakasura in the film. His get up is well done and his diction while delivering dialogues is fantastic. Both these features lead to a terrific screen presence for him in the film. Prakash Raj has small role but he leaves his impact.
Ganesh Venkataraman is a revelation and surprise of the film. He fits his character very well and performance it with ease.
There are number of comedians like Brahmanandam, Raghubabu, MS Narayana and Krishna Bhagwan etc, they do well but in the overall scheme they all look forced an unwanted.
Positives:
Villain
Background music
Story
Graphics
Climax
Negatives:
Comedy track
Songs, especially first two songs in second half
Predictability in proceedings
Analysis:
The basic premise of the film is very good. It is narrated in classic fairy-tale, folklore kind of way with demon praying for wish and God grating him wish trope used as well as other such tropes present in a folk tale.
Naturally then everything else that doesn’t adhere to this classic narrative looks out of place. Like the romance and comedy. While romance in integral to the proceedings the comedy looks completely out of place and at times it looks forced and rather unnecessary. It drags the film in the process.
First half has more comedy and therefore it feels dragged but despite it being unnecessary it is not forced into the narrative which makes the proceedings passable. All the engaging portions in the first half are the scenes related to the main story. In the second half the starting half an hour is very dragging with some forced songs and comedy. The film slowly gains momentum with the character of Ganesh Venkataraman (Rahul) taking center stage. It builds momentum for the climax and the climax delivers. Despite the predictability involved the climax and leading scenes to the climax are well done and they engage the audience. Some of the visual effects in the climax portions are truly world class, some are okay. On the whole the film is an easy watch for the basic good versus evil story.
Direction by Sreenivas Reddee (that’s how it is in title cards) is good in parts. He gets a big scale production with a big hero and once we see the film we get how he would have got the film in the first place. His story is good but as a director his vision falls short to make the film the ultimate experience it could have been. Also his small scale directorial roots showcases time and again in some scenes which makes them look out of place.
Music is okay but Devi Sree Prasad breathes life into the proceedings with his background score which is fantastic. Cinematography is okay and editing is fine. Choreography is alright. Special effects are awesome and as said the transformation effects are done wonderfully. Some creature effects however could have been better.
Bottom-line: An easy one time watch for Villain, Graphics, BGM and Story.
Rating- 3.25/5
