Can Brahmastra crack the superhero code for Bollywood

The buzz around Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra is definitely growing, and fast. When the release of ‘Kesariya’, the first song from the film, was postponed a few days ago (it had originally been slated to release on the 15th of July) fans expressed their disappointment on social media in droves. The song was finally released on Sunday (July 17). The superhero film, which stars Ranbir Kapoor , Alia Bhatt , Amitabh Bachchan et al, is billed as the first of three movies set in the ‘Astraverse’, inspired by Hindu mythology and the concept of elemental ‘astras’ or weapons that channelize the forces of wind, water, fire and so on. Mukerji himself appeared in a five-minute promotional video on YouTube where he explains the origins and the inspiration behind the Astraverse. Calling Lord Shiva his “biggest artistic inspiration”, he says that he named Ranbir’s character Shiva for this reason. Uniquely, Shiva (the character, that is) is a ‘living weapon’, an astra himself who can control fire. Brahmastra is going to tell us the story of the ‘Brahamansha’, a secret society of sorts that harnesses the power of astras to “do good for all mankind”, as per Mukerji. Brahmastra is all set for a September release and the stakes are high. Bollywood has been ceding commercial ground to the ‘pan-Indian’ film of late: this year, too, the Kannada film KGF 2 and the Telugu film RRR were the big winners at the box office, much more so than the marquee Hindi-language films of 2022 so far. A lot is riding on Brahmastra, therefore. Can it beat the odds to become the bestselling Bollywood film of the year? I say ‘beat the odds’ because as far as superhero films are concerned, Bollywood does not have the greatest of track records. Bollywood and the superhero movie The beginnings of the superhero genre in Bollywood lies in a film that outside of diehards, would probably not be very familiar to the casual viewer—Ajooba (1990), directed by Shashi Kapoor and starring Amitabh Bachchan, a Zorro-like masked avenger imbued with supernatural powers of healing and armed with all manner of magical artifacts. The film drew heavily from Arabic folklore, with a ‘Fauladi Shaitan’ (a magical, gigantic stone-demon) controlled by Amrish Puri being the film’s Big Bad amidst a story of kings and queens and trusted viziers and magical sidekicks. Ajooba had plenty of obvious drawbacks—the casting of the ageing Bachchan as a young superhero (a crown prince no less) being the obvious one. But the film also had a lot of heart and a sense of childlike wonder at the folktales the story was referencing. Incidentally, the film did quite well in Russia, being a Russian co-production and a couple of local actors as well. In Hindi-language cinema in the 21st century, there have been a handful of superhero films, each led by a major mainstream actor. But not one of them could really be said to have done a good job, overall, at delivering a tonally and stylistically consistent superhero story. Hrithik Roshan’s Krrish (2006) and its sequel Krrish 3 (2013) were both commercial successes, it should be acknowledged. But especially for the latter, the storylines were extremely derivative, downright silly at times. And the air of silliness wasn’t helped by the shockingly bad VFX in several key scenes. In Krrish 3, the villain Kaal (Vivek Oberoi) is a mental mutant confined to a wheelchair, like Professor Charles X. Xavier from the X-Men films and comics. He’s raising an army of part-animal mutants like Doctor Moreau—hilariously, these were called ‘maanwar’ (‘maanav’ + ‘jaanwar’ ie ‘man’ + ‘beast’ in Hindi). And Oberoi had the temerity to suggest that his performance was akin to that of Heath Ledger’s rendition of The Joker in The Dark Knight, widely considered to be one of great screen performances of the last 20-odd years. This wasn’t the only bit of overlap the film had with the X-Men: Kangana Ranaut’s character had shape-shifting abilities—and an erratic temperament—just like Mystique from the X-Men movies (played by Rebecca Romjin). Shahrukh Khan starred in the Anubhav Sinha-directed Ra.One (2011), in which he played G.One a video game protagonist come to life to hunt down his in-game opponent, a program named Ra.One, who’s homicidal and can take any human form. With Ra.One, the problem wasn’t the lack of scale or the VFX—both of these elements were adequately handled, I felt. Here, the basic storyline just wasn’t strong enough and tried to do too many things at the same time. Its Tron-like premise was strong but then it also tried to channel some of that E.T.-like equation between G.One and the son of the geeky designer who created him (also played by Khan, naturally). There were cutesy moments, like the bot-like G.One breaking into the Akon hit song Chammak Challo, or the spate of cameos in a scene where Ra.One’s shapeshifting is on display. But ultimately, Ra.One was all flash and pizzazz with far too little substance to show for its efforts. A Flying Jatt (2016) starred Tiger Shroff as a young Sikh man named Aman Dhillon whose overnight superpowers appear to have something to do with the mysterious appearance of a khanda on his back (khanda refers to the traditional Sikh symbol of a sword, a chakram or throwing disc and a pair of symmetrical daggers). A Flying Jatt did have the youthful Shroff’s exuberance and action movie credentials, not to mention the presence of wrestling champ Nathan Jones’ imposing presence as the main antagonist. But beyond that, the story and screenplay were paint-by-numbers jobs, really. A Flying Jatt did moderately well at the box office but I doubt even Tiger Shroff superfans will remember much of this movie. The closest we’ve come to creating a good, solid superhero film was Vikramaditya Motwane’s 2018 film Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, starring Priyansh Painyuli and Harshvardhan Kapoor as a pair of young men who decide to create a vigilante persona to fight street-level crime—and what happens when the cub vigilantes come across criminals that are a little more major-league than traffic offenders and so on. According to me, the film works best when it shows its young protagonists for who they truly are: kids playing hero, scared shitless, making it up as they go along, hoping for the best but hardly prepared for the worst. This is a fertile space for the kind of tragicomedy that works for a Kick-Ass or a Deadpool, two films that are, like BJS, hyper-aware of their own status as meta-fictional comicbook capers. Plenty of nudge-wink references to superhero-lore abound in all of these films; it’s a part of their matrix. But disappointingly, BJS falls into the tragedy-shall-wake-up-the-somnolent-hero trap. This all but kills the screenplay for the second half — where we should have seen the stakes rise due to realpolitik, we get flashbacks and montages that explain Sikander’s sudden re-awakening. Which is a pity, because Vikramaditya Motwane remains one of our most technically proficient filmmakers — “mad skills” doesn’t even begin to describe the way he has put together an array of arresting, rain-drenched, Mumbai-by-night images. Superheroes by another name As many observers have noted at length, the ongoing Marvel epoch (the MCU films have been the dominant box office force globally for over a decade now) has resulted in film industries all over the world seeking to turf in on this newly created market for superhero stories. And in India, one of the most commercially successful filmmakers of the last 5-6 years, SS Rajamouli, is proof of the fact that audiences can’t get enough of these films. Both of the Baahubali films, reliant as they are on the protagonist’s cartoonish feats of superhuman strength and agility, are superhero films by proxy. Or superhero films set in the distant past, to put it more accurately. Rajamouli’s latest, RRR, wowed critics in the West with many calling it a significant improvement on recent Marvel fare, formulaic and templatized as it has become. Critic Uday Bhatia, reviewing the movie in Mint Lounge, called RRR a “dual superhero film” and that’s absolutely correct. Like Batman v Superman, the ‘frenemy’ equation between a dual superhero film’s leads is dripping off every frame of RRR. This, then, is the cultural moment that Brahmastra steps into. It’s true that thanks to the popularity of Marvel and DC movies in India, there already will be huge captive audience for the film. But with great power comes great responsibility—these audiences are also well-versed with the ins and outs of superhero movies and they have accordingly high standards. If Brahmastra wants to be the kind of franchise-launching movie it clearly sees itself as, it has to match those global standards. Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.