‘Ramayana: Rise of a Legend’ Review: Whose Story Is This Epic Really Telling?
‘Ramayana: Rise of a Legend‘ arrives carrying the weight of one of the most beloved stories in Indian culture. Director Nitesh Tiwari leads a cast that includes Ranbir Kapoor as Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as the demon king Ravana, and Sony Pictures is pushing the film worldwide for the Diwali weekend. Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman share the scoring duties, which tells you how large the ambition is.
The film opens far from its hero. We spend the first stretch in Lanka, watching Ravana pray for power, harden into a conqueror and swallow the lands around him, before the story moves to Ayodhya, where the god Vishnu is reborn as the prince Rama. Rama wins Sita’s hand, then Queen Kaikeyi demands his exile, and he leaves for fourteen years in the forest with his wife and his brother Lakshmana.
This is where my reaction takes shape, because the film is spectacle first and feeling second, and the villain is the one who gives it a pulse. Tiwari turns Ravana’s famous ten heads into ten quarrelling voices inside a single mind, and Yash plays that inner argument with swagger, menace and a surprising streak of wit. Every scene in Lanka crackles because we are watching a man fight himself.
Rama is the harder sell. Kapoor plays him with a solemn stillness, and the script keeps telling us how kind and gifted he is instead of letting us see it, so the devotion around him feels announced rather than earned. Sai Pallavi’s Sita hints at a sharper, more active version of the character in a few moments, and Ravi Dubey’s Lakshmana tries to lighten the mood, yet the central couple never quite sparks.
The craft is a mixed bag. The costumes, the palace sets and that thunderous score give the film real grandeur, and a few set pieces, including a late aerial clash, are staged with genuine imagination. Elsewhere the effects can look weightless, the creature designs rarely convince, and the action is cut so frantically that you lose track of who is standing where.
The English version brings a problem of its own. A generative AI system reshapes the actors’ mouths to match the dubbed dialogue, and in close-ups the result is distracting enough to pull you out of the drama. If you have the choice, I would steer you toward the original Hindi version.
Then there is the structure. This is only the opening half of the tale, and it stops just as the true conflict is about to begin, so hero and villain never really face each other. Much of the runtime plays like careful groundwork for the sequel promised next year, which makes the pacing feel patient in some places and padded in others.
Overall, I left the cinema entertained, frustrated and curious in roughly equal measure. A magnetic Yash, a handsome production and a big swinging score carry me past a stiff Rama, uneven effects and an unfinished story, and I will happily line up for the second part. I give ‘Ramayana: Rise of a Legend’ 6.5 out of 10.
Will you be watching 'Ramayana'?
Did Yash’s Ravana steal the show for you too, and do you agree with my verdict on this first half of the epic, so tell us in the comments below?
