Myth & Magic:
The extravagant action-adventure-mythological, Mirai, gives Teja Sajja, the star of HanuMan, a similar character. A thief and scrap dealer, who is unaware of his superpowers, till he is called upon to save the world.
This film directed and co-written by Karthik Gattamneni (with Manibabu Karanam) does have an overstuffed script, but its main purpose is to pack the 165-minute film (seems much longer) with as much CGI-aided action as possible.
The film starts with an animated Emperor Ashoka, repentant after the Kalinga carnage, who divides his life force into eight books, that are given for safekeeping to eight warriors in different countries. The secret of the hiding place of the ninth and most important book is known only to Ambica (Shriya Saran), who lives in an ashram in the Himalayas and has the power of seeing the future. Whoever gets the ninth book, along with the other eight, can achieve immortality and become God.
To prevent the destruction she has foreseen, she has to abandon her son, Veda, who is raised by an Aghori, and lands up in Hyderabad, with the mandatory sidekicks. The film is set in present times, but retains the who-knows-when vagueness of comic book-styled films. Cars, a train and a helicopter are part of it, but hardly any other modern day gizmos. The ashram communicates with the outside world via pigeon post.
A villain, called Mahabir Lama (Manoj Manchu) has been capturing the books one by one—thankfully, not all of the marauding is filmed, but there are action sequences set in Japan and Morocco. Lama’s weapon of choice is a black sword that has magical powers. The arms used by the warriors protecting the books, include musical instrument shaped objects that emit killer sound waves. For no ostensible reason, Lama is accompanied by a “professor” whose job is to look awed by his exploits.
Lama’s fights are violent without being unpleasantly gory, and it is only a matter of time that he is pitted against Veda. A mind-reading young woman (animated synapses connect) from the mountain ashram, Vidhi (Rithika Nayak) comes looking for him, to convince him that he is the chosen one. Before encountering Lama, he has to contend with an English-speaking “lady villain” (Tanja Keller). Other characters too, inexplicably switch to English lines.
Chased by cops, again for no real reason, Veda has to find the magical stick, Mirai, buried in the snow and protected by a giant vulture, supposedly Sampati, the brother of Jatayu from the Ramayan. The film gets increasingly fanciful as Veda communicates with his missing mother via a hand mudra and sees himself in her womb. Lama’s backstory is given too much time. Strangely, he wants to acquire the power the books would bestow, but not for the reason one might expect. There is an odd touch of the secular in a film that bases so much of its story on sadhus, tantriks, magic and mythology. What the Mirai turns out to be is an audience-pleasing surprise.
The film starts out as entertaining, but Gattamneni makes it so heavy going as it proceeds, with such loud background music and Sanskrit chants (Gowrahari) constantly on, it loses the boyish flair Sajja brings to his scenes. Mirai is not light enough for young audiences to enjoy, and not serious enough for adults. The visual effects and fight sequences (several action choreographers are credited) are impressive most of the time, as is the lavish production design (Sringendra Tangala). The plodding pace is occasionally enlivened by a truly thrilling scene, like a narrow escape or the arrival of an unexpected ally.
Along with Sajja, Manchu and Saran, actors like Jagapathi Babu and Jayaram Subramaniam appear in heavy costumes and Rana Daggubati drops in for a cameo. Unlikely ‘outsiders’ like Raghu Ram and Rajendranath Zutshi have supporting roles.
Mirai, following in the path of Brahmastra, also goes by the current trend of making expensive spectacles—a couple of times, it is compared to “English picture” by a character—with an added garnish of mythology to make it a draw on the big screen. At least the ambitious scale can be appreciated.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
