SS Rajamouli delivers rousing imagery yet again, with his style of excessively designed emotional moments. With the kind of blockbuster-defining big-screen weight in his images, it’s evident why he wanted to tell this story with such a pairing of stars. But a lot of the times, the excitement in these moments are for the ideas than they are for how impactful they are to feel for/with. The sense of grandeur in singular moments isn’t felt across the story. 

In this kind of a multi-starrer potboiler, the first beat of friendship doesn’t really have to look convincing, the very fact that these close-to-mythical figures are interacting, can suffice to lend weight to the proceedings. But Rajamouli cares enough to even go over-the-top with these interactions, elevating them to electrifying heights on visual prowess alone. The pitfall is that the interest generated in the pairing isn’t sustained until the finish line. The film suffers from dry beats once we’re left with just the how-s of the story. The setpiece in the climax is hard to care about, paling in comparison with the emotions in the insanely good interval sequence, where the motives behind at least one of these characters was still ambiguous, making for compelling drama along with the explosive action. I wish this dichotomy were consistent through the narrative.