Baahubali, despite its epic dimensions — with a tendency to copy larger-than-life Hollywood heroic tales like Ben-Hur and Troy — fails at some level to draw us into the narrative. Even one of the first scenes of a huge statue being erected with the help of slaves works in a very limited way to capture audience attention or set the mood for images of flying swords and falling boulders.

My biggest peeve with this film is the manner in which the characters are drawn- too cartoonish and derived from mainstream Bollywood/Hollywood to curry favor with a discerning audience. Shiva prances about emulating Hrithik and scales mountains and precarious waterfalls a la Tarzan. He is a little too childish to be impressive. The CGI looks fake and for most-times quite unbelievable. the scale of the mounting may be huge but it just doesn’t measure up to reality.