Wow. How do I even get started on this movie. I first saw the trailer, and I was kind of suspicious about it, but after seeing the RAVING reviews, I decided to go. I REGRET IT. BIG TIME.
This is the first time I'm writing such a long review because I need to vent my frustrations out. I'm going to break it down into sections, so here we go.
PLOT:LOL. WHAT PLOT?!? Basically, this movie is like if "Kalki 2898 AD", "Hanu Man", "My Little Pony" [particularly the parallel between "The Elements of Harmony" and the Nine Books] and "Harry Potter" [Nine books; Nine horcruxes] were thrown together into a grinder, blended half-assedly, and served on a low-quality platter. There were so many plot holes, so many things that made no sense whatsoever. Instead of calling it "Mirai: Superyodha", they should have called it "Mirai: The Power of Friendship and My Dead Mom's Memories".
CGI (AND THE BLATANT USE OF AI):The makers of the movie LIED when they said there wasn't ANY AI at all in the movie. THERE WAS AI. IT WAS CLEAR AS DAY IT WAS AI. They literally searched up "indian monkey" on ChatGPT and copy-pasted it into their movie. Also the CGI was kinda shoddy at places.
AUDIO/BGM:The only score from the BGM I liked was the "rudhira" BGM. That was quite good. But everything else? Not that good in my opinion. There was one particularl BGM between the hero and the heroine where they randomly mixed in the "OH MY GAWD" meme audio. I wanted to hurl myself out of the seat.
I don't know if it was the speakers in my theatre (which usually have great speakers; it's one of my favorite theatres to go to because of how effective their sound system is) or if they shoddily mixed the audio, but I was frustrated throughout the movie. Hald the BGM was muffled in places. Half the dialogues was being OVERPOWERED by the BGM. SOMETIMES THE DIALOGUES SOUND MUFFLED. Only the SFX were super clear.
DIALOGUES:Oh boy. This one ALSO pissed me off. Some of the dialogue came off as too verbose. They wrote some of the characters to speak in super old, or according to the makers, "sophisticated" Telugu. It sounded extremely cringey. And the new age characters? They use half-Telugu, half-English in their dialogues. The hero says something about how Mirai only works in the hands of good and not evil. Okay, but why would you mix Telugu and English in that? They way he said good, it sounded like guddu, which means egg in Telugu. The villain ALSO uses half- Telugu, half- English. SO WHENEVER HE MONOLOGUES, I CAN'T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY. JUST STICK TO TELUGU. But, then, in retrospect, the dialogues in pure Telugu sounded cringey, so there is no win-win here.
ACTING: Probably the only department where I really don't have any complaints. Except for the two women in the movie, the heroine, played by Rithika Nayak, and the hero's mom. The heroine was okay, some places expressive, other places bland, but it's fine. The hero's mom, played by Sriya Saran, was...just too much or too little? There was one scene where she was supposed to look extremely ferocious and angry, but she just looked like a mom about to gently scold her child.
The hero, played by Teja Sajja, did a good job, as expected. He essentially perfected the "chosen one" trope, so I am hoping he moves onto something different, something that actually challenges his acting skills, because I am sure he has more to offer than this.
The villain, played by Manchu Manoj, was decent? MAN IDK. I felt like they could have used a better actor, but Manoj did what he could I guess.
Let's take Nachiyappa Gowda, played by Sandy, in Lokah for example. He was hella menacing. I mean that's because there was good writing involved there, but also because of how Sandy made Nachiyappa. He BECAME Gowda, and so it became difficult to differentiate who is Sandy and who is Nachiyappa. THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A VILLAIN. For Mahabir Lama in Mirai, his character was let down in terms of the writing department, which I will go talk more about in the next section.
WRITING:SO MANY QUESTIONS. AND NOT THE GOOD KIND.
WHO THE HECK IS THE PROFESSOR ACCOMPANYING LAMA? WHERE DID HE COME FROM? WHY IS LAMA SO CLOSE TO HIM? WHY DOES THE PROFESSOR LOOK SCARED OF LAMA ONE MINUTE, AND ADMIRINGLY THE NEXT? WHAT THE HECK WAS THE PURPOSE OF HIM?
Mahabir Lama was given quite an extended backstory, which was great. We got to see how he became the man he became, and I appreciated it. Although I did find the switchover from good to evil a bit too fast, it was pretty good for its own standards. But let me tell you that I was more scared of the Teenage Lama than the Adult one. Why? Because the way they wrote Adult Lama was NOT good. They tried to use his violence as a method to show how "cruel" he is. But Teenage Lama was shown to be a cruel, methodical, and power-hungry guy. He took his time to carefully enact his plans, and the way they wrote him was genuinely good. ALL OF THAT FLEW OUT THE WINDOW WHEN THEY SHOWED ADULT LAMA. WHAT. A . WASTE.
The hero and the heroine track was so fast. TOO FAST. The hero likes the way the heroine's hair smells (when will we stop with this creepy love track), and after two days, the heroine tells the hero that he is the only one left in the world that she thinks is her person. LIKE OKAY???
AND FINALLY, the mother track. I am too exhausted to talk about this one, but I find it hella convenient that the hero is able to remember everything and defeat the villain super easily.
SO MANY PLOT HOLES AND PLOT ARMORS. For example, the villain gets all nine of the books and harnesses their powers. So wouldn't that make him immortal? Then how did he die? HOW DID THE HERO DEFEAT HIM?
BASICALLY, THIS MOVIE IS ONE BIG "WHAT THE HECK" OF A MOVIE. DO NOT RECOMMEND.
Wow. How do I even get started on this movie. I first saw the trailer, and I was kind of suspicious about it, but after seeing the RAVING reviews, I decided to go. I REGRET IT. BIG TIME.
This is the first time I'm writing such a long review because I need to vent my frustrations out. I'm going to break it down into sections, so here we go.
PLOT:LOL. WHAT PLOT?!? Basically, this movie is like if "Kalki 2898 AD", "Hanu Man", "My Little Pony" [particularly the parallel between "The Elements of Harmony" and the Nine Books] and "Harry Potter" [Nine books; Nine horcruxes] were thrown together into a grinder, blended half-assedly, and served on a low-quality platter. There were so many plot holes, so many things that made no sense whatsoever. Instead of calling it "Mirai: Superyodha", they should have called it "Mirai: The Power of Friendship and My Dead Mom's Memories".
CGI (AND THE BLATANT USE OF AI):The makers of the movie LIED when they said there wasn't ANY AI at all in the movie. THERE WAS AI. IT WAS CLEAR AS DAY IT WAS AI. They literally searched up "indian monkey" on ChatGPT and copy-pasted it into their movie. Also the CGI was kinda shoddy at places.
AUDIO/BGM:The only score from the BGM I liked was the "rudhira" BGM. That was quite good. But everything else? Not that good in my opinion. There was one particularl BGM between the hero and the heroine where they randomly mixed in the "OH MY GAWD" meme audio. I wanted to hurl myself out of the seat.
I don't know if it was the speakers in my theatre (which usually have great speakers; it's one of my favorite theatres to go to because of how effective their sound system is) or if they shoddily mixed the audio, but I was frustrated throughout the movie. Hald the BGM was muffled in places. Half the dialogues was being OVERPOWERED by the BGM. SOMETIMES THE DIALOGUES SOUND MUFFLED. Only the SFX were super clear.
DIALOGUES:Oh boy. This one ALSO pissed me off. Some of the dialogue came off as too verbose. They wrote some of the characters to speak in super old, or according to the makers, "sophisticated" Telugu. It sounded extremely cringey. And the new age characters? They use half-Telugu, half-English in their dialogues. The hero says something about how Mirai only works in the hands of good and not evil. Okay, but why would you mix Telugu and English in that? They way he said good, it sounded like guddu, which means egg in Telugu. The villain ALSO uses half- Telugu, half- English. SO WHENEVER HE MONOLOGUES, I CAN'T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY. JUST STICK TO TELUGU. But, then, in retrospect, the dialogues in pure Telugu sounded cringey, so there is no win-win here.
ACTING: Probably the only department where I really don't have any complaints. Except for the two women in the movie, the heroine, played by Rithika Nayak, and the hero's mom. The heroine was okay, some places expressive, other places bland, but it's fine. The hero's mom, played by Sriya Saran, was...just too much or too little? There was one scene where she was supposed to look extremely ferocious and angry, but she just looked like a mom about to gently scold her child.
The hero, played by Teja Sajja, did a good job, as expected. He essentially perfected the "chosen one" trope, so I am hoping he moves onto something different, something that actually challenges his acting skills, because I am sure he has more to offer than this.
The villain, played by Manchu Manoj, was decent? MAN IDK. I felt like they could have used a better actor, but Manoj did what he could I guess.
Let's take Nachiyappa Gowda, played by Sandy, in Lokah for example. He was hella menacing. I mean that's because there was good writing involved there, but also because of how Sandy made Nachiyappa. He BECAME Gowda, and so it became difficult to differentiate who is Sandy and who is Nachiyappa. THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A VILLAIN. For Mahabir Lama in Mirai, his character was let down in terms of the writing department, which I will go talk more about in the next section.
WRITING:SO MANY QUESTIONS. AND NOT THE GOOD KIND.
WHO THE HECK IS THE PROFESSOR ACCOMPANYING LAMA? WHERE DID HE COME FROM? WHY IS LAMA SO CLOSE TO HIM? WHY DOES THE PROFESSOR LOOK SCARED OF LAMA ONE MINUTE, AND ADMIRINGLY THE NEXT? WHAT THE HECK WAS THE PURPOSE OF HIM?
Mahabir Lama was given quite an extended backstory, which was great. We got to see how he became the man he became, and I appreciated it. Although I did find the switchover from good to evil a bit too fast, it was pretty good for its own standards. But let me tell you that I was more scared of the Teenage Lama than the Adult one. Why? Because the way they wrote Adult Lama was NOT good. They tried to use his violence as a method to show how "cruel" he is. But Teenage Lama was shown to be a cruel, methodical, and power-hungry guy. He took his time to carefully enact his plans, and the way they wrote him was genuinely good. ALL OF THAT FLEW OUT THE WINDOW WHEN THEY SHOWED ADULT LAMA. WHAT. A . WASTE.
The hero and the heroine track was so fast. TOO FAST. The hero likes the way the heroine's hair smells (when will we stop with this creepy love track), and after two days, the heroine tells the hero that he is the only one left in the world that she thinks is her person. LIKE OKAY???
AND FINALLY, the mother track. I am too exhausted to talk about this one, but I find it hella convenient that the hero is able to remember everything and defeat the villain super easily.
SO MANY PLOT HOLES AND PLOT ARMORS. For example, the villain gets all nine of the books and harnesses their powers. So wouldn't that make him immortal? Then how did he die? HOW DID THE HERO DEFEAT HIM?
BASICALLY, THIS MOVIE IS ONE BIG "WHAT THE HECK" OF A MOVIE. DO NOT RECOMMEND.
