Movie Review: Baahubali The Beginning

**(Spoilers ahead)**

Hey guys I'm back on the blog after quite a tiring week. Senior year's first week has been quite hectic and I finally found some time to post again, sorry for the inconsistency folks. Plus writing another movie review, yes. This time for the Baahubali movies.

For now I’ll be reviewing for the first part of the movie that was released 2 years ago. After some friends’ sarcastic remarks of the movies, my willingness to review a dubbed movie, and also a lot of memes which I encountered on all my newsfeeds, I finally decided to download both parts to watch it.

I was only able to watch the first part for now, because the movie was a whopping 2 hours and 40 minutes long. Without any further ado, here’s the review.

 Movie:  Baahubali: The Beginning (2015)

 Genre: Action

 IMDB:  8.3/10

 Synopsis: A baby is rescued from a mysterious hand holding him up in a vigorous river stream by some villagers, where he grows up to be a strong, adventurous man. His past soon comes to haunt him as he meets the love of his life and discovers that he is the awaited royal Maheshmati that has to save his kingdom from his father's cruel brother.

 Worth it?  Yes.

This movie is not your typical Bollywood action movie. Dubbed into more comprehensible languages like Hindi and English, this Telugu movie has won the hearts of many with its well constructed storyline and engaging action sequences. When I was watching the movie, I felt de ja vu hitting on me, with it’s Disney-like storyline of a royalty who was raised unknowing of his identity and on his way to self discovery. Also when Devasena- Baahubali’s mother- kept chanting that his son will return to bring justice, my mind played "Meray Karan Arjun ayenge."

Characters were well executed, and the acting was very on point, except for a few cheesy scenes with the leading female character. What I loved about this movie is how they showed their women fierce and brave, unlike the typical portrayal of them being damsels in distress. Avantika, who is Shiv’s love interest, is shown as a warrior who wants to fight against the crueler king of the Maheshmati to save the captured Devasena. Another character, the Queen Sivagami- wife of Baahubali’s uncle who was deemed unfit for the throne, caught my attention in the movie. After Baahubali’s mother passed away while in labor, and the father having died long before that, the baby was left orphaned. A scene in particular had my interest, when she was mocked by her royal trustees and her husband for being a woman in control- she orders like the queen she is to her loyal servants and reinforces herself further as the authority, she continues to say that both her son and Baahubali are equal to her and both will be taught the art of running a kingdom equally until one is deemed the best, as she proceeds to breastfeed both of them together- shocking everyone in the palace on how she didn’t simply prefer her own son.

I think this movie had the best special effects, that I have never really seen before in a Bollywood movie, maybe because I’m not a very crazy Bollywood fan. But I fell in love with the special effects which didn't look fake and unreal at any point. The highlight of this movie was the raging battle between the Maheshmati and Kallakeya, which was packed with amazing action sequences that had me glued to the screen at all times and wishing I was in a movie theatre to get the best experience out of those scenes
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This movie ended with many questions, how did the evil brother end up on the throne, why Kattappa- the most loyal servant- killed Baahubali, how will the junior Baahubali go save his kingdom, and many many more, which all adds up to the eagerness and anticipation of watching the sequel- released just a few weeks ago- which is the next movie to watch on my list.

You can watch the trailer for this movie here.