India's costliest film retells a beloved Hindu epic - but divides critics

India's most expensive film - a lavish retelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana, made in two parts for a reported $500m - has opened in cinemas worldwide, sparking enormous expectations and mixed reviews.

Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is the first of two planned films, a sprawling production that brings together some of India's biggest stars, Hollywood visual-effects expertise and two Oscar-winning composers in an attempt to take one of the country's most revered stories to a global audience.

One of Hinduism's foundational epics, the Ramayana has travelled across centuries and continents, finding expression in poetry, temple sculpture, shadow puppetry, folk theatre and stories passed down through generations. It has outlasted kingdoms and empires, inspired religious devotion and political movements, and found new life, again and again, on TV and in cinema.

Tiwari's version returns to the familiar story of love, duty, exile and war, set in a world of gods and demons, celestial weapons and mighty kingdoms.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Lord Ram, the virtuous prince of Ayodhya. Banished from his kingdom for 14 years, he retreats to the forest with his wife Sita (played by Sai Pallavi), who is kidnapped by Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka.

Played by Yash, one of southern India's biggest stars, Ravana is a powerful warrior whose pride leads him into an epic battle with Ram (which will be depicted in part 2, set to release next year).

The film's producer, Namit Malhotra, heads visual-effects company DNEG, which has worked on Hollywood blockbusters including Dune and Interstellar. The music is a collaboration between AR Rahman, the Oscar-winning Indian composer of Slumdog Millionaire, and Hans Zimmer, whose scores for Gladiator, The Dark Knight and Dune have helped define the sound of modern Hollywood.

The film opened days ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights which celebrates Ram's return to Ayodhya after his exile.

Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV channel gave it three out of five stars, saying its visual spectacle often overshadowed the story. Its enormous scale, he wrote, "remains, for the most part, the only thing that stands out", while the acting remains "wildly inconsistent".

Rishabh Suri of the Hindustan Times newspaper was more enthusiastic, awarding it four stars.

"I am happy to report, all that money shows on screen," he wrote, praising the performances and visual effects, though he found the first half sluggish and the music underwhelming.

Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express, who gave the film three stars, confessed to initial misgivings about its extravagant scale but found herself gradually won over, calling it the "perfect epic".

There was "enough sorcery and thrills and adventure" to sustain the spectacle, she wrote, and the filmmakers had managed to tell a sprawling story without being swallowed by it.

Internationally, too, the film drew contrasting reactions.

Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw called it a "thoroughly engaging, rousing and spectacular Indian epic melodrama". He found echoes of Shakespeare in the royal intrigue that sends Rama into exile, and of Homer in his quest to rescue Sita. Its sweeping landscapes and fantastical imagery reminded him of The Lord of the Rings and The Lion King.

"It's a rather amazing adventure," he wrote, giving it four stars.

Others were less impressed. Siddhant Adlakha of IGN scored the film four out of 10, describing its action as "clunky" and its computer-generated imagery as an "eye-sore".

Giovanni Lago of Next Best Picture, who gave it five out of 10, praised Yash's magnetic Ravana and the score by Rahman and Zimmer. But he felt the film's vast narrative might have been better served by a Game of Thrones-style series.

The use of AI to adjust actors' lip movements for the English-language version also drew criticism. While Tiwari said it was intended to make the film more accessible to international audiences, Adlakha likened the result to "exaggerated mouth movements superimposed on still images for comedy sketches".

In India, the film has invited comparisons with earlier adaptations, particularly Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, which captivated the country nearly four decades ago with simple sets and special effects that now seem quaint.

When the series first aired in 1987, Sunday mornings across India took on an almost devotional stillness.

Streets emptied, shops lowered their shutters and neighbours crowded around TV sets. Some viewers bathed, lit incense and garlanded their screens before the broadcast, preparing for the show much as they might for worship.

Arvind Rajagopal, a media scholar at New York University, told the BBC in 2019 that trains and buses would stop and passengers disembark to watch the show on roadside TVs.

Broadcast on the state-run Doordarshan network, some of the most popular parts of the 78-episode series drew an estimated 80-100 million viewers, astonishing numbers at a time when owning a TV was a luxury in India.

The actors, too, became objects of reverence. Arun Govil, who played Ram, has recalled people weeping at the sight of him and touching his feet. Now, in a casting choice brimming with nostalgia, Govil returns in Tiwari's film as Dasharatha, Ram's father.

Other adaptations found their own ways to reimagine the epic. The 1992 Indo-Japanese animated film Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama brought the tale to life through richly detailed, hand-drawn animation.

Tiwari's Ramayana arrives with technological resources its predecessors could barely have imagined - but also with the expectations of generations who have grown up with the story and its characters.

It also comes at a politically charged moment in India, where Ram has become a powerful symbol of Hindu identity - over the past decade-and-a-half, even popular analyses or retellings of the epic have landed in controversy.

The 2023 film Adipurush, another big-budget retelling of Ramayana, sparked backlash on several fronts.

Hindu groups called for a ban, accusing it of disrespecting religious figures, while some critics questioned its depiction of Ravana, which they said drew on Mughal imagery and reinforced stereotypes about Muslims. The film was also criticised for its dialogue and visual effects.

For the actors portraying these characters in the latest film, that burden was deeply felt.

"I was filled with fear," Kapoor told the BBC Asian Network's Haroon Rashid. "I knew that maybe I'm too old for this. I won't be able to do justice to it."

He called the role "an opportunity of a lifetime", but said playing a figure worshipped by millions left little room for the creative freedom he had enjoyed in other films.

Sai Pallavi, who plays Sita, said the experience was as much spiritual as artistic. Raised in a religious household, she said she approached the part not just as a performance, but as an opportunity for personal growth.

The film's popular reception will become clearer soon as audiences fill cinemas.

But whatever the verdict, it marks a major cultural moment for India, bringing a story loved for generations to the big screen on an unprecedented scale.