Ranbir Kapoor on Ramayana’s mixed reviews and an old song

For a film as ambitious as Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana, the first wave of global reviews was never going to be quiet. After its world premiere at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, the international review embargo lifted, and reactions landed somewhere between dazzled and doubtful.

Ranbir Kapoor returns to an old song

Speaking at an IIMUN event, Ranbir Kapoor addressed months of trolling and memes without seeming rattled. He reached for a piece of Hindi film history, quoting the classic line, “Kuchh to log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna”, and called it a philosophy to follow in life. The actor, who plays Lord Rama, said the only opinions that matter come from the people who care for your work, your intention and your kindness.

Director Nitesh Tiwari kept his own answer short: a clear conscience and a hundred per cent effort leave nothing else to ask for. The song itself belongs to Shakti Samanta’s 1972 romantic drama Amar Prem, written by Anand Bakshi, and Bollywood fans will remember it as the advice Rajkumar Hirani built into Ranbir’s Sanju as well.

The producer is laughing with the internet

Namit Malhotra, whose Prime Focus is backing the epic, said in a recent international interview that he has learned to laugh at the memes. His reading is simple: the internet needs someone in the news to make fun of, and this time it happened to be his film. More importantly, he said the project is drawing real appreciation alongside the criticism — and he is trying to accept both with the same ease as Lord Rama taking the crown and the exile in the film.

What the first reviews actually say

• IndieWire praised the film’s visual spectacle and storytelling, noting Hans Zimmer joining AR Rahman for what it called the composer’s first Indian film score.
• IGN was cooler on the leads, finding Ranbir’s Rama and Sai Pallavi’s Sita graceful but lacking an underlying sense of real human beings, and it criticised the action and comedy.
• Screen Rant enjoyed the charm of the two leads in action-packed scenes, but felt most characters stayed rooted in their mythological selves — with Yash’s Ravana as the standout exception.

The split matters because Ramayana arrives in cinemas worldwide on Thursday, November 5, as one of the most expensive and closely watched Indian adaptations in years. The international critics are evaluating the spectacle as global cinema; Indian audiences will soon decide whether the emotion lands where the scale does not.

If you are still deciding, the sensible play is to catch it early on Thursday: early word of mouth in India often rewrites a film’s fate far more decisively than international notices.

Source: The Times of India