Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva

We're in. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Bollywood Cinema Club. I am the host of the Culture Cast, Chris Stashue. Every episode of this show we take a look at an Indian cinema film from the past, or the present or the future. But that's not really possible, now is it.

Well, resent future kind of the same when we're talking about a movie that came out on streaming, so release dates don't really matter anymore, at least in this country. We kind of just see things on streaming and it'll, you know, you watch it whenever you watch it. On this episode, I am joined by my good friend If you have listened to the Culture Cast before, he is a frequent guest digital artist. Yeah, yeah, Dustin Good that's a good one. Yeah, I think so.

I think that's yeah. Why not? So? Yeah, So my good friend Dustin and him and I are going to be talking a little bit about a film that came out earlier this year, September of this year. Actually it is the first film in a well in a universe of movies.

So they claim the astra Verse, a planned cinematic universe. We know how those tend to go, at least in this country. When you call your shot before you land it, we're gonna be talking about twenty twenty two's Brahmastra Part one Shiva. So. The film is directed by and written by ayon Ayan Mukherjee.

It stars amitab Bakchan, Ron Beer Kapoor, Alabat Narjuna Chahru Khan, Moona Roy Dimple Kabatia. It has a lot of people. Some of these people if you are if you are well versed in Indian cinema, their inclusion will make a lot of sense given what this movie is trying to do. If you're not as familiar some of these names, it should be obvious by the time you're done watching this movie who they're giving a little bit more screen time too. But Dustin, before we start talking about the movie, give me a little bit of your background with Indian cinema if you have any.

Yeah, not, really, don't have much of a background in at all. This is I mean, I've seen bits and pieces of other films, but this is the first one I've watched beginning to end. So I'm glad that you asked me to be a part of this because it's a genre of film that I haven't really dove into and I mean that's the thing about this show that is important for me. You know, with the Culture Cast, we did one one month a year of Indian cinema. But you know, looking at kind of the trends and what the expectations were and where the audience is, it's kind of obvious to me people want more Indian cinema content.

So spend this show off and it's okay if you've never seen Indian cinema before. That's the point of this show is to introduce it to you and then get you to watch more of it. Because nine times out of ten, ten times out of ten, the movies that we're watching are very good and are indicative of high quality Indian cinema. That all out of the way. So Bramostra is the first part of a three part film series, with the first movie being Bromostra Part one, then Bramosterra Part two, and then I'm assuming Bromostra Part three.

First movie is all about the character Shiva played by ron Beer Kapoor, who is a very famous, very well known Indian actor. He was featured on the Forbes India Celebrity one hundred list and has been since twenty twelve. He's one of the highest paid Indian actors in Hindi cinema and he's a six time Filmfairs Award winner, which is the equivalent of an Oscar or an Academy Award in this country. He plays Shiva in this film, an orphan who finds out that he is the possessor of the Agniostro, which is the ostra of fire. Because all of these people in India have the special power of the astra, and so the Brahmastra is kind of the It's kind of like the infinity gamlet.

I mean, the equivalent would be the infinitely infinitely gauntlet. In Hindu mythology, the Brahmastra is a weapon that's able to destroy the whole universe, which they kind of talk about in the movie. You kind of see that in the movie. But the entire film is Shiva learning who he is, meeting allah Aliabot's character who plays Issha, and finding out his place in the world. Also while running into Amy topbak Chan and shah ru Khan and a whole bunch of other kind of very well known Indian actors.

So Dustin, you were the one who wanted to watch this. You kind of brought this up to me, So why did you want to watch this movie? And what did you think watching it? So the only reason I saw I heard of it is the algorithm on the streaming platform recommended it for me. So based on what I've watched previously, I thought I might like this and looking into it, watching the trailer, I was like, yeah, this looks kind of fun.

And I know we've talked about this these type of films and wanting to do them, so I was like, yeah, let's do this one. Apparently the computer logic thinks thinks all like it, so it's pretty excited to get into it. And after watching it, I mean, first and foremost, the visuals are pretty fun. They're great. I love the lighting that's there's always anytime the batties are around, there's some kind of red glow and like, I just think it's cool effects the whole way through, hands down, And you know, I don't know about star power in those films, but from what it sounds like, there's some star power in these movies.

So it did feel very Marvel Universe like And to give you an idea, shahru Khan plays Mohan Bargov, the scientist that gets will we talk in spoilers, Mister scientist, mister scientist, mister scientists. He's the scientist that, since I guess, kills himself to evade their capture. He is one of the top six actors in Indian cinema of all time. He is he's I don't even know if I mean it's Diesel. Well, well that's fai, I'm kidding, it's it's I was gonna say he's like Robert Downey Jr.

But it's like more than that. There's like it would be like if in The Avengers. See that's the thing. I don't even know who that actor would be. For American cinema, Like shah Rukhan is so ubiquitous that having him as mister scientist in this movie.

And then Ami tab Bacchan playing Rob Who the leader of the Bromanche, the guy with the glasses, the guru h he is also as big as he's. It's like it's like if you had George Clooney and George Clooney in your movie. That's like, I don't know how else to describe it. It's like if you had George Clooney, George Clooney and George Clooney again in your movie. Because Amy tap was was and is, but he was is a massive star in India, but he was a star in the seventies.

Shah Rukhan was a massive star in the nineties and two thousands, and then ron Beer Kapoor is a massive star in like the tens and twenties. So it's I mean, that's the thing about this movie is it's a lot a lot of it is just like they have these massive names aimes in this movie. Well, you can tell that the actors in the movie, like they're polished actors. You can tell that they're they're good at what they do. And you know, there's some clips of this genre of film that I've seen that I don't know, can I seem corny or like almost like can I have like a B movie feel to him?

Well, obviously Listen didn't have that add all sorts of money behind it for those visual effects. But the actors too, they you could tell that they're good, they're good actors. Well, and that's the thing about this movie. I mean, it's you know, they're trying to start this universe. The ostro verse, which they're really it's it's crazy to me.

This is a Marvel movie. Yeah, ostensibly like it. It feels like a Marvel movie. It has a little bit of Marvel movie. It has a little bit of Harry Potter in it too.

The whole thing with Brahma Dev being dead but not dead. He's around but and don't say his name. It's like, oh my God, like you copy this. It's it's it's it's a mix of a lot of very familiar things for Western audiences. This is another movie similar to Triple R that came out in you know, this year, that have come out, and similar movies have come out in the last couple of years that are big budget action movies that are in the vein of the big budget action movies that they're making in Western in Hollywood.

You know this, You could stand this movie up against Avengers really like or you know, Iron Man. I mean it's more Avengers. I mean it's it's scope is a little bigger, I think. But that's that's kind of where I had to keep my head with this movie because the writing in this movie is is not great. The dialogue is it's funny.

I I you know, I I love that you mentioned the colors immediately and the usage of the style of the lighting, because it's always interesting to see how cgi and visual effects are used and interpreted through non Western eyes. That's one way of doing it, is really making sure that everything is stylistically interesting and nice to look at it, and giving the audience something to constantly be seeing that they maybe have never seen before, at least something that's interesting to them. Well one to that point, there's a lot of contrast in the movie in the visuals like black bright red, black bright blue, like there was there was something always to like draw your attention and be like, oh, what's that.

It's like watching fireworks one And I mean again, like it's you know, it's no different than a Marvel movie, right, I mean there in most of these Marvel movies. Again, Marvel's stuff is a little bit more grounded in reality, so it's not constantly interesting, but they're I mean, there are parts of this movie early on in this movie where there's not a fair amount happening. There's a lot of stuff with Shiva and Issha in the orphanage, and that's I mean again, it's yeah. My issue with this movie is it is. It is taking our Marvel movies and stripping out all of the things that make the characters interesting and leaving us with the most one dimensional characters I have ever seen.

Like our main hero, it's shocking how one note he is. Yeah, he's like perfect, He's the kind of guy you'd want to bring home to your mom. Like, he's perfect. He knows, he says the right thing all the time, all the time. He's always got a quotable line.

Yeah. It's it's actually insane the kinds of things his character says in the movie, Oh you are my one love. I love you forever. It's all about love and what They've known each other for three days. Yeah yeah, yeah, and now she's pregnant with his son.

It's like, oh my due. It's it's you know it. What's crazy to me about this movie is the lack of quality. Like dialogue is very apparent, like anytime the characters interact with each other, it's very stilted. It's like me, right away, it's the prequels bad.

Like it's as bad as the prequels Star Wars movies. It threw me right away. Mister scientists talking to like the assassins He's like, what's your name? Huh? He's like, oh, you're you're a You're a bull, You're you're a cheetah.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like why are you talking about names and wanting to name them? They're here to kill you. You know what it reminded me of. It reminded me of.

It's like, you know what it is? You remember an Infinity War when they fight those dudes in the street and Tony stars like squid word Like it's again, I'm not well, I'm not bemoaning the movie. I'm just it's more it's interesting to see where they're drawing influences from in Western cinema and how they're interpreting it through the lens of Indian cinema. It's something gets lost in the translation, and I don't know what it is. I've been sitting last night when I was watching the movie, and every time the characters were opening their mouths, the dialogue was just so.

It was so banal for the most part, like Shiba says nothing of value in the entire movie. He is a one note character. Okay, so let's build the perfect character, right. So okay, so he's an orphan. Automatically sympathetic.

Automatically sympathetic orphan. Okay, so let's let's build out his back story a little bit more. He's an orphan who his mom saved him from his dad, who is the ultimate evil question mark Probably not, though, given that this may have influences of Star Wars and other mainstream media stuff. Okay, so his mom saved him from his dad, who was the ultimate evil. All right, So again, massively sympathetic character.

And then what does he do for a living? Works in an orphanage and loves children like you're you're making the ultimate If there's a merry sue, it's that for a male character, Like, it's insane to me how he is just like mister Goody two shoes the character there's no I know, there's no complexity to the character at all. Yeah, right? Or is it just? Is it just me?

So Isha immediately falls in love with him, obviously, right, He's just so lovable and like, yes he is. That the problem the problem I had with this movie is I enjoyed this movie immensely. I'm looking forward to the next one. I think these movies are Yeah, these movies are the perfect kind of antidote for Marvel movies. In a way, it's it's giving me what I want with Marvel movies, but with the sensibilities of Indian cinema and also some killer songs.

I mean again, I have things to say about the songs, but I think the things that I would say about the songs probably factor back into the character of Shiva. I think my issue with this movie writ large is just they didn't do enough to make me really invested in any of the characters, because it all feels very very very very very very very perfect, all very perfectly well made, perfectly produced, like this is a you know how we talk about movies made by committee. That's what it feels like in a way, like it's too perfect, Like all the dialogue is just there's the character, isn't There's no shade of gray to the character at all, nothing, and I just is the wonder boy, right, Yeah, And their whole relationship is just kind of on fast forward.

If you think about this being a three part series and you compare that back to like a Marvel movie, you know, there's relationship tribulation that happens, like, for instance, like Hawkeye and Black Widow, they're never romantically involved, but they have this push and pull the entire time with their friendship, you know, and then at the very end, well love what happens, you know, But but their relationship has so much story throughout the whole thing. Where is this In the first fifteen minutes, he's two are in love and their their ride die. Like he says he's going to go go save this person firm god knows what. And she's like, I'm coming with like you just met yesterday. Well she she loves him.

Yeah, and I guess to health the orphanage, but yeah, he's watching that place well and and again that's that's the thing. That's the thing about the movie. Like I you know, you have a very traditional plot structure. You have a character at the beginning who dies, who sets up the rest of the kind of the rest of the movie's action of going on the quest of Shiva and Issha to learn about his past. But you have chavru Khan in your movie and you kill him him in the first thirty minutes.

Again, it's it is an extended cameo. They didn't want to pay a three hour Conjon Bryce An SRK three out. Yeah, Well that's the thing. I mean, it's nice to see him. He's obviously very charismatic, he's his dialogue is some of the only dialogue that halfway works because he plays it with enough tongue in cheek where it's kind of him being smarmy.

But yeah, it's too I mean, it's too bad that he just unceremoniously bites it in the first half hour of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of did like his character from the get go, and I was like, oh, they're going to kill him right like this. Yeah, And what's funny is again, like they saw they saw something like Avengers, and they said, okay, we have the Iron Man character. Let's put the Iron Man character in our movie.

Because again that feels like what that's supposed to be an analog of Right, Yeah, and we'll just kill him in the first thirty minutes. I like that idea. Just don't like that it's SRK, who's an amazing actor who could have been used to better effect in this movie, and mister scientist, Like, come on, I mean it, there's a lot of matter, there's a lot of matter of factness with the script, like then they're going to find there at one point they're talking about going to kill the artist like he has he has a name. They say his name several times a nish shitty But then they're like the artists artist who's also an archaeologist. He wears many hands.

It's funny. This is this really feels like a Marvel movie. Again not lowest common denominator, but it's being made for the most amount of people. What I actually dug about it almost, I mean, I'm the comic book fanatic I love you know, when the Marvel MCU stuff started, I saw that first Avengers movie and I was in, you know, I was like, I can't wait till they do this for the rest of my life and they're going to Yeah, boy, aren't they. But what I really like about this and almost what kind of made it different.

I mean, there is a strong foundation of Marvel or I'm not going to say DC but Marvel foundation. I said, this is heavily influenced by Marvel and almost nothing else. Yeah, but what I really liked about this one was what really got me on board was the kind of mythological aspect of it. Like I Greek mythology. I think that stuff is so cool.

So like diving into that part of it with this, like I don't know, it had me really intrigued in paying attention because it was kind of fun. Well, and I agree with you, so that is I mean that for me is what I appreciate about this is the same thing that you said, you know, the idea that we're kind of leaning on hidden new mythology, something that already exists. I mean, they have a pantheon of gods who all have interesting and unique stories about them. I mean, you know, here you go, you know, kind of excited to see where they take that, right And I'm with you, and I'm with you because that, for me is the exciting part about this series. The vision.

I mean again, it's a visually arresting movie. I mean the amount of money, the amount of time and effort that they put into the visuals is just it's really impressive. I just really wish that they had put more time into the script. It really suffer. I mean, it really suffers.

There are so many times in this movie where you have these grand set pieces, these massive action action set pieces, and then it's sandwiched between two really really mediocre scenes of dialogue where the characters are, you know, talking to one another in a house or you know, doing just doing something, and it's like there they have no chemistry the lead. I didn't find Ron beer Kapor to have a lot of charisma. Frankly, he just seemed kind of mechanical. I don't know, again, like he knew what to say every I don't know. It seemed it didn't seem very natural his performance.

Yeah, yeah, he hit everything perfectly, which makes it seemed like you said, mechanical or just unnatural in a way. Yeah, And I haven't seen him in anything else. I have seen Amy, tob and SRK in plenty of other things. We're gonna be watching one of the movies that Ron Beer Kapor is in as a cameo at some point in twenty twenty three. But I haven't seen a lot of the movies that he's in, so I'm not sure.

Maybe that's just the way he is. I've seen ali A bot in other stuff. That's the thing. Like ali A Bought in gully Boy was really good. She's amazing in that movie, and then like you come to this movie and she's just so stilted and with her and Rombeer Kapoor, I just didn't get the sense that they were actually into one another.

Well, and every time you see her, it's she's got this just swooned. Look. Right throughout the whole movie, they cut to her and she she she says the word shiva probably three hundred times. Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, shiba, shiva. It's constant, it's and she hasn't again like all the other characters in this movie, she has no character.

And you know, yeah, I mean I understand why. I understand some of the choices because again, they're having to really lay the groundwork here for a lot of stuff right there. They're trying to do another two movies and a TV show and all this other subsequent content that comes after this movie, because they're setting out to make a cinematic universe. I Marvel set out to do it, but Marvel didn't know if it was going to work. There was no guarantee that it was going to work.

And they kind of made some decisions that ended up working in their favor. But at the same time, like, you can't make a movie with the sole purpose of turning it into an extended universe like there. I don't think there has been anything like that since the MCU that's really worked. Dark Universe, the DC extended Universe, like, none of it has worked. And if you like any of it, that's fine.

But that doesn't mean that the extended universe stuff worked. I mean, Dark Universe didn't even happen. DCU seemingly there. I don't even know, Like I don't even know the status of any of that stuff anymore. So maybe this will work.

It just I'm always hesitant when someone is putting the chicken and the egg out of order. You can't put one before the other. You can't. You can't expect that your chickens are gonna hatch just because you have a bunch of giant eggs. But I mean, this movie made a ton of money, right, I mean this movie was massively successful.

So it was the highest grossing Indian cinema or Hindi film of twenty twenty two and the fifth highest grossing Indian film of twenty twenty two. Like, yeah, that's it's nothing to sneeze at. There's a tweet I saw that made me laugh. It said Bramastra had all the Astra's money, star cast, visual effects to make a great cinematic experience except for script Astra. I mean, that's that's the thing about this movie is you know I okay, so I know you haven't seen it yet, but I talked to you about Triple R, which was the other kind of big movie like this one that came out this year, This kind of epic.

I mean, these are like epic spectacles, right. It is a spectacle movie. This is more of a spectacle than Triple R is in a lot of ways because Triple R is still a period piece, so they're not they do. You do some kind of wild and crazy stuff, but it's not this kind of weird sci fi fantasy adjacent stuff. But that movie, I really felt for the two leads.

I was really invested in the two main characters. I wanted to see their interaction and they're they're what they what they had to bring to the relationship on screen, and that should have been Ron Beer Kapoor and ali A bots characters in this movie. They're the main goddamn characters. And I don't care about their their their romance plotline at all. I don't care about their relationship because they haven't.

The movie has not made me care. The movie just goes, all right, we're showing you interesting stuff. The dialogue not as important. Like again, it's a visually a resting movie, but you cannot rest on that alone. Yeah, I was gonna say to the like actual cinematography, like the camera work.

Everything is such a dramatic shot. Every shot. Everything is a very compelling, well composed shot. There's nothing that's just like b roll or you know, it's just everything is so polished. It's like the most epic.

It's like one of the more epic movies. You know, it's epic for epic's sake. And there's and I've seen a lot of that in Indian cinema. There tends to be in these kinds of Indian cinema films, they do a lot of slow mo or they do a lot of like really kind of trick filming, you know, trick filming or tricks of the tricks of the trade type thing. This movie has a ton of that.

Yeah, slow zoom, slow pull out lens flair, you know, pan, everything's just so like it was almost overwhelming. I'm like, oh, another drama shot. But I mean, but that's maybe that's the note they were going for, was to just make it like so epic well and that's and that's the thing. I mean, it does feel in a lot of ways, like you know, if it's if it has a basis in mythology, it kind of feels like modern day mythology, like that's what they're ultimately angling for. And I mean, again, you have the character of Shiva, who is an orphan, but he's also the son of two gods, so like, you know, he can wield the Brahmostra, which is like again, it's like the infinity glove, but he's also agny Astra, so he's, yeah, he's I guess he has the he's imbued with the power of agny, which is the power of fire.

So he's kind of like Thor. Well, that's the thing. I mean, that's you know, the characters in this movie like they they're they don't really have analogs in Marvel. I mean, there are there are some that are close, like Shahrukhan's Iron Man, but yeah, like Shiva is yeah, Thor adjacent, I guess, because he kind of has able to create his own fire at the end, like Thor is able to produce his own lightning without the hammer, but he also has the powers of a of a god. Yeah.

Yeah, because at the end he blocks all the fire from the universe being destroyed. I don't know how else to describe it, Like the universe starts getting destroyed and he has to he stops it. He protects Asha and takes it all into him and that's when he sprouts all the arms. But what's weird is he's Superman, but he's also you know, it's weird because like the characters Superman, he is the perfect character's perfect, like and I'm not saying like he's perfect as a character, like the character is written with no flaws. How is that interesting?

Yeah? How is that remotely compelling? Is my question? In what universe is writing a character who has no character flaws compelling? I mean, there's a whole moment where the movie just stops.

Ami Top goes, let me tell you about your mother and father, and then we spend ten minutes going through flashbacks, and it's like, oh my god, like movie, you're you're, You're. I get I get that they have to mythologize these characters within the movie because that helps build the world and build up the backstory. But what did they have to do it all in the first movie? Right, Well, that's the thing you give you. If it's an extended universe, you you don't have to do all of it now.

I mean there there's there was two Iron Man movies, a Captain American movie, a Hulk movie, an Avengers movie, all before Tana's Ever Happened Thorn movie? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Like where where does it go from here? The stakes are already that it's the world was in the middle of being destroyed. Yeah, we started within game. Well, and that's the thing.

I mean, that's that is the thing that is interesting when you mention it because DC did the same thing. They tried to They just tried to rush to the end. They said, all right, well, you know, we don't care if you spend ten movies building all of this up. We know what people want. People want to see Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman together.

So Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice and then what came after that, literally Justice League. Like that's the thing and in this in this movie there right, well well well wow, depending on which one you watch, depending on the version you watch. And that's the thing about this movie. This is really like if you just sat down and watch the Avengers, I want a Jack Snyder cut of Ramastra with even more slow motion.

Give me more dialogue, give me more stilted, just like it would. The dialogue is so stilted it would make George Lucas blush. It makes the Prequels look like cinema classics. That's the thing, Like everything about this movie is really good until the characters open their mouths like that's and that is like it's so it's so wild to me because I haven't seen a movie where I would contend it's totally worth checking out. But you just have to overlook how bad the dialogue is, enjoy the ride.

You don't have to listen to it well now, And that's the thing to speak to the ride part of the movie. You kind of already mentioned it before. It is a really cool looking movie. There's a lot of stuff that I've never seen before. You've got SRK flipping around and flying through the air and monkey astring and and you know, right in the first like fifteen minutes, ron Beer Kapoor is performing at this festival and all of a sudden, it just like it starts going crazy and Ogny shows up and it's just you don't see any of this.

There's none of this in Western cinema, and it's so nice to see what this can be used for by other kind of film techniques, like film influences, like where the influencers are coming from. I really appreciate that this just doesn't look like another Marvel movie at least right. Yeah, they made it. They made it seem otherworldly, you know, which was kind of cool. I will say everybody's hair was on point.

Ray's hair was great. Every time he saw him. Their hair was perfect. Well, speaking of hair, I was glad to see amytop Bakchon in this movie playing Ragu the guru. He is he?

I mean again, like, if you're gonna get somebody for your movie who's like a god of Indian cinema, especially Hindi cinema, it's amytapach and so good choice for the leader of right, I mean yeah group exactly, Astra Group, Astra Group, protecting your Astras. There's even the kids that they introduced, like the newest members of the Vermont. Is that what they have they say it Vermont? Yeah, yeah, and uh, but they say they're the Avengers of the area or whatever. They even said that.

I mean, I will tell you, no Avengers movie has the courage to have a child being shot in the back with an arrow man When that happened, like I thought it was. I thought it was a girlfriend that got it. And then I'm like, oh, the kid got stabbed into back and it's fallen off a cliff. Oh wow, isn't that something? Yeah, that was a shock moment.

It's it's interesting though, because outside of kind of the very stilted dialogue, I think it does. I think it does a din enough job at kind of setting up the universe. Yeah. Well, like I said, I, after watching this, I want to see the second one, Like I want to see where they take this, even though they downloaded a lot in the first one. Now now I want to see what happens next.

It's more like a with the level of exposition that they set up. It's like Avengers too. Yeah, It's like it's it's wild how much how much just exposition they get out on screen. I mean, they're that scene where Amy Tod just starts talking about Shiva and his mother and father. I asked, like ten minutes and that's just one of those scenes.

Yeah, And when he does that, like right away, I was like, oh, he's their kid. But then they get done with all that flashback story and he's like, you said you were going to tell me a story about my mom and dad, and you're telling me about their battle. And it's like, oh my god, yeah, that's the thing. I mean, we have to do this again. It's like it's like it's it's like it's it's un ironically the moment from Zoolander.

But why male models already told you, Derek? Really? And that's the thing. Like Amy Tod's character is probably second to Srk's character in terms of believable dialogue, but he's given all the exposition and he's also given the narration too, So they're like, all right, we need you to not only narrate the movie, but also essentially anytime you're on screen, you're just gonna be mister exposition. All right, Shiva, come over here and let me tell you something about this thing here for five minutes, and then come over here.

I'm gonna the bromostro. Let me show you about this for ten minutes. It's like, oh my god. It's And on top of everything else, there's like four or five musical acts in this movie. Yeah, those are fun and that's the music was pretty good.

Yeah, and you know that's not something you get a lot of in big action movies. You know, that's on the MCU, but better if there were it was. It was kind of it's kind of cool, like little mini breaks in the movie that you know, you just cut least have a little fun. Well, and that are catchy. Man, that's there.

I mean again, that's we watch more of these together and you will they're all there. Most most Indian cinema as it, but a lot of the contemporary stuff is moving away from miss Some contemporary movies don't feel like they need to provide it anymore, or you know, or there's just no place for it in the movie. So I will say though the music is it kind of feels like the rest of the movie. Does that make sense, Like it's just like, I don't know, like pop, it's just poppy kind of sounds the same same, Yeah, but I mean on the bad way, Ragite Singh is he's a recipient of six Filmfare Awards and all kinds of stuff, so he is again really well known quantity obviously, but it was just a little like, I don't know, everything in this movie just feels too well done, like not in a bad way, just in a too well polished you know, it's I don't it would be like I'm trying to think of an example.

It really is just like watching MCU stuff, like watching Marvel stuff. It's all very well produced. It all really looks nice. But I mean again, maybe if Marvel's stuff it wasn't so well written, it might be more obvious. I mean there have been Marvel stuff that is not great.

Yeah. I can't think of anything that's dialogue is as bad as this. Yeah, I mean it's wild like the performance. The performances aren't bad, Like it's not the performer's fault. It's not Ron beer Kapoor ali Abad.

Like that's the thing, Like I know that they're even though I haven't seen any other Ron be er Kapoor movies, I know he must be a good actor. Yeah, and he's not bad in this movie. It's just like, why make his character so bland? Like it's it's like they had the idea of Hindu mythology. It's a starting place, Okay, so we're gonna have the character be kind of all right.

He has the power of the gods, but he's not a god because the power of the gods and he doesn't know how to wield it. But once he figures out how to wield it, that will allow him to prevent the destruction of the universe, because the bad guys are trying to use the Brahmastra to destroy the universe. Like, yes, but why they were not able to make us care about the main character is a little bit beyond me, because by the end of the movie, I'm excited to see where it goes, only because my hope is that whoever they introduced in the next movie is actually an interesting character, and if the way they're kind of teasing it is any indication it's not gonna just be like Infinity War, where it's like a Thanos movie the entire time for the dev character, Right, Yeah, it says I was just looking up who they were playing on casting for that, and it says her thick, her thick Rashan, I'm probably saying that wrong because I would think he wouldn't need to be a pretty badass person too.

Well, that's the thing I mean, I feel like, really for me, the issue that I mean, outside of the kind of dialogue, I feel like my big issue with this movie is like, the villains are not memorable at all. I mean, the hero, your hero is only as good as his villain. And Mooney Roy as junoone, who's the main villain of the movie not I mean again, nobody's really given much to do, so it's going to be a problem either way. At least Sarov gujar as Zor it is kind of cool. I think he's the one who's jumping off the walls and you know he's he's the one that I think he calls Cheetah.

SRK calls Cheetah at the beginning of the movie. He's an interesting character, but neither one of them are believable threats. Yeah, well at the end, the guy who's like the ball, like almost like a Juggernaut character. I mean, he was kind of every time he hit somebody, he'd go wah. But I kind of liked him as a bad guy.

It just it didn't, let me put it this way, it didn't have the steaks. It's it's weird that the steaks of this movie are Infinity War but there's no villain of Infinity War caliber. It's like they it's it's in a lot of ways, it's like that Justice movie, the Weedon version, where the main threat is being stood in by a smaller threat who is the emissary of the main threat. That's kind of what this movie has a feel for, you know what I mean, Like it feels like it feels that same way where you're preparing us for the big villain in the next movie of Dev but there's nobody in this movie that really is as big of a threat as you're like, it's it's it's his character's dad. Yeah, So I don't know.

It was. It was weird to me because by the end of the movie, I was really excited to see where it goes because of the dev character and kind of what that means for the narrative and how this movie ends with. You know, Shiva is now wielding the Brahmostra and he I guess he's wielding it. It's not made very clear. I mean, you know, the he has the ability to stop the Bramostra from destroying the universe.

That much is clear. But by the end of the movie, I'm kind of interested to see where this goes. I'm interested to see if they bring in any other bigger name Indian actors into the mix. Obviously there he had Ami top bak Chan, who I'm assuming we'll come back. They have SRK, who has obviously now been killed in the movie.

But I will think, I will think they have to have listened to some of the critiques coming out of this movie with the dialogue, because even for Indian cinema, this is really we like again Indian cinema is I am a huge fan of Indian cinema. This is bad in a way that I am not used to in Indian cinema. This is bad and just like a bad It's just so one note, and I don't understand why it's one note. There's an interesting story there to be told, there's some interesting drama to be mind, and instead of minding it, they just kind of go you like perfect characters who are perfect all the time. It's not even made clear whether or not Shiva kills his own mother.

Yeah, that's like the one little piece of like gray area they kind of have, but it's kind of forgotten almost instantly. I thought they were about to drop that bomb and then they yeah, they just moved past it. Yeah, it's like note never mind. But the action scenes are fun, the set pieces are fun, there's you know, the set piece with Unni Shetty the scientists is fun. It's pretty over the top.

I mean, he's just getting murdered, but I fucking just lit up by bullets. But again, like that's for me. The other Indian action films that I've seen, they're always very stylistically interesting. They also are they're always not lacking in style. So I wasn't worried about that with this.

Like I knew it was going to be stylistically interesting, but I wasn't expecting it to be. So just one note from a from a dialogue, from a character perspective, I mean, that's the thing. You go and listen to any episodes of this or any episodes of the Culture cast. Nine times out of ten I talk about how naturalistic the acting is in these Indian cinema films, how relatable and interesting the characters are, and how you're often invested in the characters completely and they're fully realized by the end of the movie. I would give none of those compliments to this movie whatsoever.

And again, I know the actors in this movie have got to be good actors because some of them I have seen in other things and they're great, and some of them I haven't seen. But they couldn't have made it into this movie if they weren't a great actor. Yeah, yeah, they just weren't given a lot to work with. You're not casting ron Beer Kapoor in this movie with the sole intent of turning it into a universe connected universe and not expecting it to be a success. If you're casting someone who's not already a household name, and that's exactly what they did.

I don't know. Maybe they're not trying to ruffle any feathers. Maybe they're trying to make it the most generic thing possible to appeal to the most people possible. Maybe the next movie will be us like this one. It will be just as kind of one note and straightforward.

I hope not. And I mean, that's just kind of my take on it. It's like it was made for the most amount of people with the least amount of friction possible. So there's no grit on the characters, at least the villain or at least the heroes. The villains are not even really even They kill people, but they're not like dastardly villains.

I mean, they kill one kid, but it's not one of the main villains. It's just one of their mind controlled soldiers. Like, yeah, I don't know, maybe that's the intention. And if that is the intention, then they were immensely successful in that. But maybe do a little bit more because there are definitely interesting things to mine here and I think we would both agree this is not sustainable long term.

No, if they would now thinking about this right now, if they if they would have started with the story of the mom and dad, because I mean, given what we heard about, that could have been a standalone movie, right, it will be well, then they should have started with that. I don't want to do endgame and then do the backtrack. Well, that's the thing, I mean, that's That's the other thing that we've kind of already mentioned is this movie feels like it's like setting up eight million different things. I mean, we see all these characters that could be main characters in their own movie. Yeah, Ami top mentioned something that happened in the thirties, which is its own You could make a whole movie off of that or a series off of that.

We Yeah, you mentioned Shiva's parents, Dev and Amrita. You could do a whole movie off of them or a series or whatever the fuck, Like they've already mentioned so many movie on the Janoon character. I mean, she's just all of a sudden just there she's bad and you know, she's just boomed there. She's the bad she's the bad person that she's killing people like there's nothing behind it. Yeah, we literally don't get any character development on her character at all.

Is there and she's killing much people. And you could I mean you could even do a prequel or yeah, prequel with SRKS scientist mister Science's character. Yeah. Again, they could go any number of ways here, and and that kind of is the problem. I guess.

It feels like they're just like shotgun, like we'll do everything like well then again, like I get it, it does work and and I think it worked here. It's just you can't you can't forget that there is still a movie at the center of this. It's right, it's it's the commoditization of movies. That's what this movie is. It's like peak movie as a product.

You know, like you're going and you're eating something just to be full. You don't care what it is. It's a it's a popcorn movie. Ye, nothing wrong with it. We have plenty of popcorn movies in this country.

I wonder, how do you think this would stack up against a Marvel movie? Kind of where where would you put this in the Marvel pantheon? And kind what strata is this? What is this comparable to? In your opinion?

Oh? Man, I don't know, just because Marvel movies do strike a different Gosh, it's just so hard because the approach was totally different. It's it's hard to draw lines between them. But for what it was and what I saw, I don't know. I still, I still I think MCU movies are kind of the top echelon of this type of film approach.

They did it right without even knowing they were going to do it right. And but this, this, I like this better than the DCU stuff. Well, I would say that this is a this is as good as so we're in what phase four right now? I would say this is as good as some of the mid phase two, late phase two Marvel stuff like Doctor Strange, ant Man. I mean, ant Man is my favorite Marvel movie, aunt Man one and ant Man two, and aunt Man just as character is my favorite character.

But it's kind of in there. It's not like the best movie I think critically, because I think I love ant Man, but I'm not going to contend that Antman is the best MCU movie. I know it's not, but it's my favorite. I think that this is as good as like Doctor Strange one and ant Man. I'd give it, yeah, I would say so.

Yeah, I think the dialogue is not as good, but I think all the visuals and what the promise of more is, I think that that's that for me. Is like ultimately, when I when I was done watching this movie, because here's the thing. I watched this movie like two in the morning, so it's fucking three hours long. Like, this is not something you sit down to watch at two in the morning. I watched the whole thing.

I watched it from start to finish in one sitting. I didn't want to stop it. It was so entertaining. And I think it's because of the promise of more, like what's what's what comes next? Yeah, there's a lot of depth of lore that Yeah, they can have a lot of fun with it.

They think well and and again I mean this is this is a really good starting place. I mean this is the first movie in this universe, and it made money, So I don't think we have to worry about not getting at least one, probably two more beyond that, do they make the TV show and the cartoons and whatever, and blah blah blah blah blah. Who knows, right, nobody could have anticipated where Marvel was in O eight for twenty eighteen, Like I could never have imagined that we would get Yeah, really, I totally could have. And then we'll get Danos and then we'll get Doctor Strange, but we won't have the X Men because they don't own the license for that, so there will be no Wolverine or Charles Xavier, but we'll have Guardians the Galaxy.

There. Man, if that was you fucking go buy a lottery ticket right now, pal. I wasn't far. I'm not trying to. I remember thinking Robert Downey Junior would be a good iron Man, but that was only because I was reading the comic book in the two thousands, the Ultimate Ironman comic, where that character in that is like looks like Robert Downey Jr.

So one of my favorite comics series is The Infinity Wars, and I have all those comics and the moment they were doing all those individual movies Captain America, Iron Man, stuff like that, and kind of got the you know, they had announced like they're going to do an Avengers movie with all of them. I was like, Oh, that's super cool. And then the moment they showed Thanos in the after credits of that movie, right away, I was like, oh my god, I know what they're doing, like we're going to see Infinity Wars and they and they did it, and I was excited since that point, And that's where I kind of walked away from with this movie. By the end of it, I was on board for whatever comes next, and I will I will watch it with a heavy dose of excitement because this was a really good starting place all of the really terrible.

Again, can't emphasize how bad the dialogue in this movie is. It's affably bad. You would not be remiss if you laughed at half of the dialogue in this movie. I chuckled it like half of the things the characters in this movie say. It's so just white nightey, like fucking just it's so cringing.

Yeah it's correct, Yeah, it's just so dopey. And again, it's like fall sentimentality. It's like who nobody's actually liked this. Nobody talks this way. You are talking this way like a character in a movie.

But even with all of that, where this movie ends up was so interesting, and the promise of what we will get next, I think is so different from anything else that we have seen that I think, whatever it is, I'll be excited to watch it. But you could do worse than this is a starting place. You could do better, But DC didn't do better than this. Man of Steel is not better than this movie. Now do you know they made a big splash with this movie, right?

It was like you said, throw everything in it, make a big splash. So what do they do with the next one? I mean it's got to be just as big, big or bigger. Right. Well, that's the thing.

I mean, that's what I was saying, Like, I don't know who else they could get, what other Indian cinema actors they could get. I mean, there are people that they could put in this movie. They could get a Mere Khan and the next movie they could get Ragni Khan, they could get oh god, a Neil Kapoor. I mean, they could get plenty of people for the next movie. Again, I don't know if that's the answer, I think, you know, whoever they cast is dev obviously is going to be a big question and that's going to be an important role to land.

I just think that they I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where they go. Where they left it is dev is escaping. Yeah, again, I don't know enough about Indian mythology or Hindi mythology to have an idea where they go.

And again it's it's kind of main you know, modern day reinterpretations of Hindu mythology. So now I don't know if you did what I did, but I did watch through the credits just to see if there's a posite and credit scene. No, they did it before. Yeah, it happened. It kind of the movie kind of ended and then like boom, they went into another scene, which I kind of appreciated.

Yeah, you don't have to make me sit around and wait. Well, I mean I'm already like jacked up. Don't don't let me come down, Like keep that dopamine train rolling, baby, like real, Like, what's you know? I remember? I remember when they did that at the end of the second Matrix movie.

I was like, are you making me fucking wait, like get out of here. Yeah, And that's the thing. Now, everybody sits around in the theater after the movie's over, waiting for whatever post credit scene there is, to the point of like ign in some movie websites like is there a post credit scene? It's like no, there's not, or yes there is, and it's like, oh my god. The fact that you to comment on it, now, that's how common place they are.

That's or some movies do a mid credit scene, oh yeah, and an end credit scene and a pre credit scene. So people leave and like, oh there's another Oh crap, Yeah I have I've run into that too. Yeah. I don't know. I mean again, I don't know where they go from here.

I don't know what the next Bramoster movie holds. But it's supposed to about in twenty twenty five, so that's three years from now. Put it on the calendar. Yeah it does it come out in twenty twenty five, Who knows, that's the expectation. I'm hoping it does.

This movie was a lot of fun. It's not much of anything in a lot of ways. It's it's like a it's I would say it's like a fast food meal. But it's like it's like snacks, it's popcorn. It's a popcorn movie.

Do not expect to get much out of it other than being entertained, And, to be fair, movies not doing much else, movies existing. This movie exists to entertain you. It's not asking you to do much. It's not even it's not even expecting that you're going to ask it to do much other than entertain you. And that's maybe why the characters are drawn so broadly.

Yeah, but it works, I mean it works. Criterion thought provoking dialogue here, No, and again, like I would like if the dialogue was better and less stilted and felt more like two people talking as opposed to two robots talking. Yeah, it would have elevated the movie. But the movies. But the movie already has a lot going for it, So yeah, Dustin final final thoughts on Brahmastra Part one, Shiva, Well, we've said a lot of it already.

I am on board for number two and probably number three if number two is like number one, because just fun and like you, I think you said it just a minute ago, like the dopamine, like it was a ride and it kept you going, like kind of amped up the whole time and that was kind of and we talked about this before watching the movie. If any listeners are going to watch it, don't watch it with English audio dubbed over, because that'll just make it even worse. Oh it's I don't did you watch any of it? I did. I watched a little bit and it if Yeah, if you think the subtitles are bad, if you already think the script is bad, oh, the dubbing is the dubbing will make you laugh.

It's just yeah, yeah, it's don't if yeah, just don't yeah, and then just yeah. Just the other final thought, the visuals are just so good and it was just fun to watch by and large because of that, because it's just just exciting in that respect. Yeah, No, I agree, you know, it's it's a movie that similar to Triple R. It's a big spectacle with a lot of wild, weird, exciting new things to see that you maybe have never seen before. And it's a it's a visual s'morgus board of CGI effects.

Does it live up to the character building of Triple R? A movie that I immensely enjoyed on all fronts. No, But but it doesn't have to to be entertaining, right, you know, ultimately it just has to be three quarters of the way entertaining, because even in the best action movies from Western directors, sometimes the dialogue there isn't amazing. However, in this movie it really is like prequel prequel levels of bad. That being said, like you like you've echoed, I am excited for the second one and the third one and whatever other pieces of media they decide to create to tie back into the ostro Verse, because yeah, unlike the Dark Universe, unlike the DCU, I think the ostro Verse may actually have some legs to it, which is super cool.

Yeah, And in twenty twenty two, aka earlier this year, the director of the film went to Los Angeles and was talking directly with Kevin Figy all about during an international movie summit, all about the probably universe creation. So who better to cross over? Oh my god, who better really to learn from her? To pick pick the brain of right? Yea, if I'm doing something like this and I want to make a connected universe, there's one person I want to talk to and it's Kevin Figy over at Marvel, so for sure.

So yeah, no, this was fun. And by the way, in case you want to know where to watch this movie, It's on Hulu right now. You have a Hulu subscription, you can watch this movie, and you should. It's just that easy. Yeah, you don't have to.

Even there have been movies that we have watched for this show that have been harder to find than this. This is an easily accessible movie, just like Marvel movies. It's easy to find. It's on Hulu, a streaming platform. You may even are ready have so.

And if you don't usually watch movies that have English subtitles, step out of your comfort zone. You're going to enjoy it, and then you've got something interesting to talk about at work with your coworkers. Being ay, I watched this movie called Bramastra well, and honestly I would advocate for just turning the subtitles on all the time anyways with everything. Yeah, I don't watch without subtitles anymore, like it actively bothers me if I watch something without subtitles, I always have close captioning or subtitles on, because it started that way with our first daughter, because we turned TV way down, don't want to wake her up, so we just watch the close captioning on. Now we do it because we can't hear it anyway because the kids are playing so allowed well.

And also, from what I have heard, putting subtitles on is good for kids with their kind of reading thing like yeah, I mean you're still reading, so yeah, and our seven year old has caught stuff that comes across the screen the Bromanche, the bromanch. So until next time, you can find me over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That is the website where all the podcasts that I work on. Until the next episode of The Bollywood Cinema Club, you can find me over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's the podcast network where you can find this show, along with a whole host of other shows true crime, narrative, all different kinds, supernatural, paranormal.

If you can't find it on there, it's probably not worth listening to. As for me, you can find me over at c stashu dot com. But again, Weirdingway Media is really the best place to go as for this show, Bollywood Cinemaclub dot com. Social media if you want to. If not, whatever, social media is dead.

What I've heard, and yeah, Dustin, thank you so much for joining me. This is a lot of fun. Yeah it was, can't wait to do another and uh yeah, well we'll catch you on the next episode.