Extravaganza…..is the first word that came to my mind after watching Bahubali. 2015 has been the year of spectacular movies but Bahubali takes it to another level. The story belong to the era of kingdoms and narrates the first part of the journey of a man as he discovers his genesis.
Cinematography:
To start with the best part, the cinematography. The film has brilliant camera work and it speaks for itself right from the first minute till the last. You would want to watch some of the scenes over and over again. The art direction is excellent and complements well to the hard work of the camera. The opulent lifestyle of ancient Indian kingdoms is well depicted. The special effects has been most effectively used and never appears to be overdone. One of the best computer graphics work seen off late – to the standard of Hollywood.
Story:
The story is well written and keep the audience engaged throughout even though it is a 2 hours 39 minutes movie – and that’s just the first part. One of the key highlights of the story is the strong character sketch of each lead characters – the kind of strong characters only seen in Mahabharat before this. A special mention goes for the level of detailing and explanation of war strategies that this movie has shown is simply mind blowing. The movie depicts the brilliant engineering that used to be implemented during wars in India.
Acting:
Acting level, just like in the most high profile South movies, is above the benchmark. Given that I haven’t followed Andhra cinema off late, Prabhas was new to me but the guy has given brilliant justice to his character and has acted his heart out. The Tarzan of Baby (Rana Daggubati) emotes well to generate audience’s hatred. Tamannah gives an impression to be a very important character of the movie in the beginning but is gradually sidelined as the story progresses. The surprize, for me, is Anushka Shetty for her bold acceptance of a role much older than her current age. With limited screen time and talk time, she lives up to the benchmark she has set based on her past performances.
Music:
Music is good but not so relevant with the story. Songs are pretty much forcefit and you may just want to skip them.
Verdict:
Overall, the movie sets a great benchmark on movie making, art of story telling and capitalizing on visual effects. At the end, it just keeps you waiting for The Conclusion.
New LIFE!!! 
Hi nice work. I do agree that its a benchmark for Indian standards in many ways but the story was too simple and the cliffhanger would only work if there was scope for grey characters, but Bahubali has clear distinctions between good and bad characters and its obvious Kattappa will be blackmailed or coerced in some way by the evil villain to do what he did. Its not much of a suspense and doesn’t really whet my appetite for the next movie. Anyway, Check out my review of the same at https://themoviecourt.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/bahubali-review/
Hey Thanks. I agree that the movie doesn’t have any grey characters. From what I have seen in South Indian movies so far, most of them have a clear distinction of hero, heroine, villain and a comedian with nobody trespassing beyond their own territory. It was a very good effort overall. Like you also mentioned in your post, the movie lacks subtlety. I guess that was the case with Arundhati and Magadheera as well. Haven’t watched any other historic movies apart from those. But I suppose that is the trend.