Mirai is an ambitious, but lazily timid visual effects overkill that squanders away potential with an undercooked early draft screenplay that needed rework, notes Arjun Menon.
After the blockbuster success of Hanu-Man, Teja Sajja returns with his next ambitious project, Mirai. The film is broad in its scope and is a theatre experience that only few Indian films have been able to provide in the last few years.
Mirai deals with the myth of Ashoka post the Kalinga war, who, at the height of his power, dismantled his strengths into nine scriptures, much like the infinity stones in the Avengers films, which become powerful when they come together. Each stone will unlock the powers to immortality and will be the end of the world as we know it.
The film has too much going on, with an over reliance on 'Ithihasa' as the engine of the whole movie.
Cut to year 2000, a pregnant lady with premonitions, eight men who deny the prophecy and a stone-faced evil force are out to collect the ninth scripture (they already have eight).
This group is led by a cocky Mahaveer Lama (Manchu Manoj).
An elderly Maharishi is the only hope for the safe retention of the ninth and most important scripture from Ashoka.
Then the story cuts forward to present times where the concentric lines converge with the hunt for the ninth scripture.
You get the 'chosen one' Veda (Tejja) being given glimpses into his destiny and faith to restore the peace of the universe by retrieving the ninth scripture.
Unlike Hanu-Man, where Tejja's boyish charm worked wonders in grounding the larger-than-life leaps it took, here, his weightless persona feels like a crutch to the storytelling.
With all the hyping around of his eternal destiny and call for greater action by the secondary characters, you never feel convinced that Veda is the one entrusted with the job of saving the world.
Manchu Manoj understands the balance between the haminess and perfect laconic delivery of lines needed for the villain archetype and has fun with it.
There is a detached 'coolness' to the way Tejja plays the part that makes it seem like nothing of this really matters.
There is no tension in the performance that is satisfied with the superficial, broad impression of a 'devil may care' warrior.
It's as if the writing wants you to attest Veda's heroism not through character work or moral dilemma, but through tropey superficiality.
The heroine, who is set up as a someone whose sole task is to prop up the reluctant hero for the big fight, is an underwritten part, even on paper. Shriya Saran rises above the conventionality of the writing to make the emotional hook points land better.
Karthik Gattamneni, who also shot the film, is a visually dynamic film-maker, who can come up with potential imagery if he wants to. There are gloriously composed live action fight sequences in Mirai that adhere to compositional and architectural patterns that look great on the big screen.
Mirai is imaginative when it wants to be, but the writing is so lackluster that the human interactions feel tired and uninspired.
The comic book sensibility is there throughout and the film looks visually textured despite too much going on at all times.
The loud, boisterous score by Gowra Hari gets on your nerve after a point.
The film reeks of ambition and an sincere attempt to ground the comic book sensibility in an Indian terrain, mixing lore and backstory from the Ramayana and other literature. But the overwrought world building does not make it work.
Mirai is the latest in a long assembly line of 'Pan Indian' juggernauts like Kalki 2898 AD and Brahmastra, made by Indian film-makers, who grew up on a steady diet of western pop culture.
There is the common VFX overkill aesthetic that is present throughout and it overshows the way action is staged.
There are sparks of inspired imagery and artistry like the pre-interval action block that slowly builds momentum but the film does not sustain it.
Mirai is an ambitious, but lazily timid visual effects overkill that squanders away potential with an undercooked early draft screenplay that needed rework.
