"When life gets a bit dark ... find the light."
Hello everyone!
I've somehow managed to accumulate a backlog of what I've watched, but haven't reviewed yet, and what I haven't watched but plan to review in future.
Listen, I have issues, okay? Moving on.
Tonight's choice comes from my spontaneous decision to watch a movie this Sunday afternoon, despite the fact I was busy reading book ARCs and trying to hustle getting THOSE reviews out of the way, as well.
I'm a busy bee, what can I say.
In any event, I picked this movie because I saw the trailer on accident - it looked like something I'd watch if it were of Hollywood make, and I was right - and ended up really enjoying it! It's a bit cliché, of course, but then superhero movies usually are.
I decided not to link anything else at the bottom of this page since this is the first of what is hoped to be many installments (and in fact, parts two and three are definitely in the making, with releases planned in 2026 and 2027), and I want it to be a sort of clean slate, if you will.
Now, let's get right into it.
Our movie begins with Shah Rukh Khan putting on an ankle bracelet - anklet, fashionable man that he is - after getting antagonized by two goons he calls Cheetah and Hippo, and bouncing around like a monkey.
No, I'm serious. Didn't see that one coming, did you?
Thing is, he's part of a secret society who use astras to help augment their reality, give them powers beyond mortal comprehension, and who protect pieces of what's ultimately the most powerful object in the known universe: the Brahmastra.
Sadly, goons are after said piece, which can only be revealed by its keeper, and for funsies they then tie SRK up and torture him to reveal information about the other two missing pieces.
As this is happening, our main guy, Shiva, a young DJ, is playing at a festival, falling madly in love with a girl named Isha (to the point that he sees her once and gets obsessed finding her again), and having weird visions, because why wouldn't he?
The visions actually show him what's happening to SRK's character, and in the middle of a super romantic moment with Isha (whom he invites along to the birthday party of an orphan under his care) he bails, falls fully into the vision, and manages to break the goons' hold on SRK, who then pushes himself into voluntary death, rather than lose.
The next day, Shiva learns the guy he saw? Welp, he was a big scientist and CEO, and even as he's apologizing to Isha about it all, he tells her about the visions and all the other stuff, like the artist who's going to be attacked by the goons next, for the piece HE protects.
Since the girl he decided to fall for believes these things are happening to him for a reason (bless India for that, it would have been an impossible feat of belief in America!), she goes with him to try and rescue the artist, in the process learning Shiva has a weird-ass connection with fire, which he can't explain.
He can explain away a lot, and is good at it too, but the fire? Yeah, no clue there girlfriend, you'll just have to trust him.
Together, they find the artist, end up in an altercation with the goons, and they race off into the night in a BMW like they're straight out of Alarm for Cobra 11. I'll get back to this one.
The artist initially wants to dismiss them, but Shiva reveals too much information that he couldn't just KNOW, so they're on the way into the Himalayas to talk to the Guru. Or, the current leader of this group of Astras, who needs to be told about these developments.
Shiva, however, gets another vision, and the artist entrusts them with his piece of Brahmastra while he faces off their pursuers.
Again, when it looks like the bullets have gotten to the guy, Shiva, through his visions, somehow manages to empower him to stand up for one last push, something that's never fully explained. Why does he keep having these visions? How is he capable of helping those in distress through it?
No time to wonder, because remember Cheetah? Yeah, he now has SRK's anklet, so he's part-monkey, too, and Cobra 11 comes to life as he, Shiva and Isha battle in a high-speed drive along winding roads. It's not the Autobahn, but it's close enough since the BMW gets yeeted off the side of a cliff for good measure.
Now, Cheetah doesn't give up THAT easily, and just as Shiva and Isha are professing their love for each other, he pops back up again, only this time Shiva calls on fire to protect the girl he loves, burning the dude to a crisp.
FINALLY, the stupid Guru realizes his front porch is being invaded, and comes to investigate.
He then explains nothing to Shiva and blackmails him into staying by promising the truth about the boy's parents - being an orphan, whose mother died when he was still in the crib, he has no one - while sending Isha away.
Unfortunately, Shiva can't seem to access his power and is stuck on how to turn it ON, until a night he sees Isha attacked by the Hippo of the goons, after which the Guru finally clocks into the fact that ISHA is Shiva's button. Or, more specifically, his love for her.
My guy. You're the GURU. If you couldn't figure out that the dude melting your front gates was doing so while protecting the woman in his arms, then you need to change jobs and go sweep hallways somewhere.
Anyway, things turn complicated after Isha arrives, because the group encounters someone clearly under control of the same red glowing rocks that they've encountered before, and it all seems to circle back to Junoon, the girl leading the charge for the Brahmastra.
The Guru now has no other choice but to tell Shiva the story: how their group used to have an island headquarters, how one of them, Dev, wanted to master the Brahmastra, became so obsessed with it that he didn't care if he ruined the world by using it.
How his once-lover, Amrita, fought him on that same island, and neither one of them returned alive.
But Amrita was pregnant with Dev's child before that, and Shiva's able to reveal the third piece of the Brahmastra using his blood - the piece presumed lost during the battle. That blood is proof he's Amrita and Dev's son, and that Amrita survived.
Why didn't she return to her group? Why did she just disappear, and raise her son in secret? What, more specifically, DIDN'T she want them to know?
I'll tell you what.
She somehow managed to capture Dev and entomb him, but didn't ACTUALLY kill him, so then she went off into the unknown and no one was the wiser. But Dev's consciousness, neither here nor there, found willing followers who've been working on releasing him, which is why he needs the Brahmastra to be complete.
And since Junoon now knows where Shiva is, considering the idiot put on one of the cursed necklaces, it's an all-out battle, which our team initially loses.
Then all hell breaks loose as Shiva finds his inner fire and they fight to keep the Brahmastra from being completed, except of course they fail, Junoon dies in the attempt, and the Brahmastra starts tearing the world apart because the group that was supposed to keep it contained isn't there to do its job.
In a very Rogue One moment, Isha tells Shiva to find her on the other side after they die - after, that is, the Guru warns Shiva he won't survive if he tries to get to Isha, separated from them, and Shiva tells him life isn't worth living without her anyway.
Shiva tells her that if they're dying, they'll have to take him first.
Then he makes a shield out of his own fire to protect her, and the Guru witnesses a miracle: because Shiva was willing to die for Isha, that sacrifice meant he could finally embrace his OWN inner flame and produce it without an astra to help him. He himself becomes the astra, and his fire contains the Brahmastra while he's at it, because he's just that powerful.
Considering he's Dev's kid, I would say so, yeah; he even uses a fiery trident at one point during the previous battle, just like his old man.
But even as Shiva proves love really is the most powerful thing in the world, they all forget about one teeny, tiny little detail: Junoon was putting the artifact together for Dev.
And on the island, his prison broken by the power surge left after the Brahmastra is reconnected, Dev awakens from what slumber he'd been forced into ... and Brahmastra, Part Two is aptly titled 'Dev'.
WHICH, THANK THE GODS!
Because there's tons we don't know, and I'm hoping the second movie addresses the questions. What really happened between Amrita and Dev? What's he going to do now, other than gun for the Brahmastra, which he still covets? Will he lure Shiva to his side, like Palpatine did with Anakin, or will son stand against father, like in Legend of the Ten Rings?
I'm excited to learn more, and to dive deeper into this Astraverse that's promising to be more colourful than the Marvel Universe. While some parts of the movie did feel incredibly rushed and went from point to point quickly, I can explain those away by saying hey, Shiva and Isha are MEANT to be together, like Shiva and Parvati in Hindu mythology. It just makes sense that way.
While some stuff is pretty corny, a lot of it is very poignant or sweet, especially Shiva's connection with children all throughout the movie. I'm curious to learn whether Shiva has any of the powers of his mother, who wielded the Jalastra in her time, which is to say, she was of the water, Dev's counterpart.
Most importantly, however, I'm just excited to dive into something new and previously unknown to me. So I can't wait!
xx
*images and video not mine
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