After watching (and loving) RRR from this director, I circled back around to see his earlier over-the-top, earnest, committed action romance spectacle Bāhubali (the Beginning). And I was pretty gripped by it for the first half… but maybe not so much in the second.

Bāhubali (The Beginning) tells the story of a young man born in the shadow of a great waterfall. All his life he has wanted to know what is above him and when he finds a mysterious mask washed down the falls, he climb to the top of the world to find a kingdom at war with itself. And the beautiful assassin warrior of his dreams.

The flick is a visual marvel (ignoring some very dodgy CGI) and puts everything it possibly can on screen. It has the logic of a folk tale you heard as a kid and it is completely and totally earnest. Nobody winks at the screen as heroes declare their unbridled love and over-the-top action set pieces splash across the screen. I give it all the credit in the world for taking itself serious.

And, hey, it’s Indian cinema so you know someone is breaking out into a dance number every few minutes. And these routines live up to expectations… and are often quite spicy too. Give me more bare midriff and toned arms… I ain’t complaining.

But the film goes into an extended flashback regarding the history of the kingdom… and I lost every bit of interest. There’s a huge spectacle battle between, effectively, three separate forces that I just didn’t care about. We already knew how it was going to end, it was just the details that it was taking too long to get to. I’m afraid this just went off a cliff for me. Crashed the whole movie.

But up to that flashback, I really enjoyed this movie… and even with the flashback, I can still give it a mild recommendation. Certainly if you like fantasy epics with completely earnest romance, this movie is for you. And if you manage to care about the flashback, it’ll be amazing from start to finish.

Score: 79