Baahubali 2 (2017) continues the epic silliness of the first Baahubali (2015), with even bigger battles, dance scenes, menacing looks, and muscles. The surprise reveal at the end of part 1 is explained and the circle is completed with the transition of the hero role from Amarendra Baahubali himself to his son, Mahendra Baahubali (both played by Prabhas) (who, as an infant, was saved from his murderous uncle by the queen, as seen in the prologue to the first film). Like its antecedent, this film swings wildly from almost slapstick comedy (e.g. Baahubali passes himself of as a 'blockhead' to get near Princess Devasena) to bloody (if cartoonish) violence including multiple impalements, immolations, and decapitations. The buzz-saw chariot is back (now equipped with a sort of volley-gun arrow launcher) but the tactical highlight is the palm-tree catapults that launch teams of soldiers who to use their shields to form armored balls in mid-air. Even Wile E Coyote would have dismissed this strategy as improbable, but the laws of physics are outrageously ignored throughout most of the action scenes and this is just a particularly egregious (but fun) example. Not surprisingly, most of the film is CGI: very good in places but times looking more like a video-game than an epic, 'live-action' film. As with #1, I watched a subtitled version so can't really comment on the acting but all of the leads still look and sound the part (Anushka Shetty's Devasena and Sathyaraj's Kattappa are particularly good). There were a few weak scenes (the weird flying ship (dream?) sequence comes to mind) that IMO kept #2 from being as overall as good as #1; but, all in all, an over-the-top epic fantasy with perhaps a somewhat different aesthetic than Western audiences are used to (picture Aragorn and Arwen, backed by dancing elves, breaking into a love duet in the middle of the council of Elrond).
Review of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion
