“Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” review: epic scale, unequal drama

By Marcus Bennett

Nitesh Tiwari’s “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” runs 2 hours 45 minutes and begins a two-film adaptation of the Ramayana. The animated action, adventure, drama and fantasy film carries a PG-13 rating for strong violence, action and some bloody images. It plays in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and English, with subtitles, and is in theaters.

Scale without force

Only part of one of the world’s most famous epics fits into this first installment. The published review calls it a “respectable and respectful adaptation.”

It brings the converging stories of Prince Rama and the demon king Ravana into one narrative through brawny blockbuster-style action and earnest royal intrigue. Combining these forces gives the adaptation immediate scale, but the contrast leaves Rama’s quieter temperament in uneasy balance with Ravana’s brute physical and dramatic force.

Ravana’s brute-force seizure of the bustling kingdom of Lanka supplies the extended prologue. Worried demigods and deities intervene around that conflict, framing Ravana’s rise and the hopes pinned on Rama (Ranbir Kapoor), heir apparent in the city of Ayodhya.

The contrast does not flatter the straight-arrow prince. Rama begins as the legend’s straight-arrow prince rather than its most volatile figure.

Exile shifts the balance

Parental plotting sends Rama into a 14-year exile with his betrothed, Sita (Sai Pallavi), and his brother Lakshman (Ravi Dubey), away from Ayodhya. The arrangement leaves the smoldering, driven Ravana and Sita’s flowing swordplay in greater relief.

Rama’s restraint gives the story stability, but it also postpones the moment when the film’s central figure might challenge its own mythology.

Rama and Sita’s devoted life together on the fringe leads to shape-shifting adventures that give the film momentum. A powerful princess schemes to become Rama’s second wife. Ravana impersonates a guru. These episodes widen the world beyond the exile plot, reward the production’s capacity for physical transformation and reveal how much energy the film loses when duty replaces conflict.

Action finds its form

Tiwari’s visual storytelling rises when he breaks from dutiful dialogue and stages grand set pieces. The published review says the film “surges unmistakably” at those turns.

The climactic set piece is the film’s battle on a flowerlike airship between Ravana and Jatayu, voiced by Anupam Kher, a beautifully rendered vulture demigod. The airborne duel gives the adaptation a visual form distinct from its court intrigue.

A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer supply the scoring. Their music accompanies the film’s movement from royal plotting toward open conflict. The score supports the set pieces, but it cannot by itself resolve quieter stretches, where explanation and duty often slow the narrative.

The airship sequence remains the clearest proof of Tiwari’s command of the material.

What can audiences expect from the second film?

The first film ends just as Rama questions his destiny, after his selfless centering of dharma. Its world is now articulated, but the central character remains only partly activated. The sequel’s practical task is clear: retain the mythology’s scale while giving Rama’s restraint the same dramatic charge that Ravana’s drive supplies in the first film. It must also take risks of its own, rather than repeat the first film’s alternation between spectacle and courtly duty.

If Tiwari takes those risks, the second film can test the scale this first installment has established. “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” has articulated the cast, conflicts and visual world; Rama’s transformation must become the sequel’s source of risk, not merely its next moral test.