“Kalki 2898 AD” rides into the future with armor cobbled together from Hollywood fantasies and Hindu mythology. Nag Ashwin’s Telugu movie, which has been dubbed into Hindi and Tamil, is loaded with visual effects, gaming-style photorealistic animation, and ideas borrowed from Star Wars, Blade Runner, Dune, The Matrix, and Marvel productions. However, while “Kalki 2898 AD” doesn’t lack ambition, it falls short of staging a spectacle on its own terms.
Plot and Setting
The movie features Telugu strongman Prabhas in a story about a prophesied golden dawn that spans 180 minutes, only to end on a cliffhanger with the promise (or threat?) of Part Two. “Kalki 2898 AD” begins with the fate of the warrior Ashwatthama from the Mahabharata. Nag Ashwin’s take on the epic is more inventive than the events set 874 years in the future.
Desertification has forced most of humankind into the capital city of Kasi. Despite being packed with soldiers loyal to the levitating tyrant Yaskin (Kamal Haasan), Kasi allows bounty hunters like the amoral Bhairava (Prabhas) to thrive. The odd guerrilla from the neighboring rebel outpost Shambala also manages to slip in and out with ease.
An inverted triangle known as the Complex purportedly watches over Kasi. Not unlike the Nirodh symbol for family planning, the Complex houses fertile women corralled together for a mysterious purpose. One of these women is Sumati (Deepika Padukone), whose path eventually crosses with Bhairava, the rebels led by Mariam (Shobana), and Ashwatthama (Amitabh Bachchan).
Visuals and Themes
The movie proudly owns its derivative nature while missing the point about the dystopic fiction from which it borrows heavily. Themes of righteous resistance to dictatorship or fresh ways of imagining power structures – central to dystopic cinema – are weak in a movie that not only rests on star power but also recommends a throwback to mythic heroism.
Despite heavy nods to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films – from the mountains of sand to the prophecy about a messianic leader – “Kalki 2898 AD” offers little commentary on whether the future will differ from the present. The film suggests that more than 800 years from now, we will still be slavishly worshipping heroes. A rebel soldier is even grateful to be captured by the allegedly fearsome Bhairava.
Characters and Performances
The opposition is equally weak. Saswata Chatterjee’s Complex enforcer Manas, likely restrained by an ostentatious collar, is too clownish to be taken seriously. After taking forever to set up its plot, much of which unfolds in murky, underlit interiors, “Kalki 2898 AD” picks up in the post-interval sections.
The climactic battle between the forces of good and evil is dominated by Ashwatthama’s wizardry. The eight-foot-high Ashwatthama towers over Bhairava, literally and figuratively. Amitabh Bachchan provides grace notes in a mostly indifferently performed movie. Bachchan’s famous baritone has been enhanced, just like his height, but his gravitas remains wholly human.
The cast includes a host of actors from southern film industries, including Pasupathy, Brahmanandam, and a feisty Anna Ben. Disha Patani plays Bhairava’s girlfriend, who disappears after supplying dialed-up oomph. Deepika Padukone’s Sumati is around for longer but has little to do beyond looking stricken.
Cameos and Homages
There are cameos for Telugu directors SS Rajamouli and Ram Gopal Varma. Rajamouli’s character has an exchange with Bhairava meant as an inside joke about the Baahubali movies, which starred Prabhas. The last thing “Kalki 2898 AD” needs is a reminder of Rajamouli’s talent for localizing Hollywood-style spectacle – borrowing and repurposing, rather than merely borrowing.
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