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‘Kalki 2898 AD’ Review: Prabhas Epic Is Terrific, Cathartic Fun

The world is a wasteland, dead bodies illuminated by covering the earth to the luridly lit horizon, drums thundering and voices rising in a choral tide; Kalki 2898 AD is massive from the word go. Enter Krishna, mounted on a chariot drawn by four suitably apocalyptic black horses, to curse the battle’s seemingly sole survivor, Ashwarthama, for the sin of shooting an unborn child. Like many of the characters blundering through Nag Ashwin’s stupendous Telugu-language epic, the valiant Ashwarthama lacks a moral framework.Thanks to Krishna, he will have plenty of time to acquire one; he is to be punished not with death, but with thousands of years of dreary life awaiting his destiny, which is to save the god Vishnu in his next incarnation. A god can take many forms, the chorus of voices tells us. Kalki is the name given to Vishnu’s 10th and final avatar. According to the great epic poem Mahabharata, Kalki will appear when everything is so dreadful that it has to be cleaned up once and for a…