Ramayana: Rise Of A Legend Review – A Visual Spectacle That Could Benefit From A Bit More Depth

The Ramayana is one of the foundational epics of human history. Revered by the Hindu faith, it tells the tale of Prince Rama, the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu, and the challenges he faced while in the mortal realm. It’s a tale that’s been told, shared, and reimagined countless times over the years – but none of those retellings have been at the scale of Ramayana: Birth of a Legend.

A labor of love from director Nitesh Tiwari and a team composed of some of India’s cinema’s biggest names, Ramayana has been brought to life in vibrant detail with the assistance of Hollywood icons like Hans Zimmer. The result is a movie that, on the surface level, is everything a cinematic epic should be.

There’s romance, action, music, and even an operative tale of order and chaos that quietly plays with expectations. While the underlying storytelling is lacking in some key ways, and it stumbles as a result, the compelling craft and engrossing highlights make it a must-see on the big screen.

Ramayana: Rise Of A Legend May Be 2026’s Most Epic Movie

Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is a gorgeously realized film, with a solid mix of flashy special effects and impressive stunt work keeping audiences engaged on a visceral level. This movie knows how to utilize the bombast of both Hollywood and Indian-Hindi blockbusters, with a scope that’s effective at recreating the mythic scale of the storytelling.

On a purely visual and technical level, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is an impressive cinematic achievement.

Hans Zimmer and A. R. Rahman’s score is operatic, and cinematographers Mahesh Limaye and Pankaj Kumar work with Tiwari to deliver a vibrant, vivid portrait of this world. The epic leans hard into the mythological elements, with magic, demons, and gods reorienting the world around their arrival, often managing the tricky task of retaining a natural-seeming weightiness. It all comes together to be a visually stunning movie that, despite its scale, genuinely approaches filmmaking with artistic intent, instead of just smashing action figures together.

The massive sense of scope rarely loses sight of its central characters, with that keen focus on the action and choreography giving the performers plenty of time to show off. That technical craft is on display in almost every reel. The fight scenes are fantastically constructed and filled with personality, while the bursts of music tend to flow well with their surrounding scenes. On a purely visual and technical level, Ramayana: Rise of a Legend is an impressive cinematic achievement.

Ramayana’s Epic Scope Comes At A Cost

While it may look fantastic, there are some drawbacks to this visual-first approach. The screenplay by Tiwari and Shridhar Raghavan dutifully synthesizes the original epic poem, even finding flashes of personality that fit naturally into the movie. However, there’s a certain uncomplicated element to the likes of Rama (Ranbir Kapoor) and Sita (Sai Pallavi) that can leave them feeling one-note.

Kapoor and Pallavi excel in the more action-packed moments, and do bring a lot of charm to the handful of scenes that expand on their characters. However, they (and most of the movie’s characters) are rooted so thoroughly in their embodiment of their mythological selves that they don’t always feel fully human.

It’s a minor but consistent drawback to the film that keeps it from reaching its true storytelling potential.

The exception to this is Yash as the antagonistic Ravana, who actually gets a fascinating focus in the film’s first act. Growing into a fearsome king whose dueling ideologies of revenge and restraint are embodied by avatars of himself within his mind, Ravana has the kind of clear personality that could have fleshed out the rest of the cast.

The performances are good across the board, with Ravi Dubey especially having fun with a quietly snarky take on Lakshmana. However, that additional touch of character depth could have given audiences more of an emotional anchor to hook onto the characters themselves, instead of the roles they play in the story. During the film, I’m rooting for Rama because that’s very much what the story wants, but a bit more of the quiet romanticism he showcased with Sita, or the simmering anger he tries to contain in the climax, would have had me rooting for him just as a character. It’s a minor but consistent drawback to the film that keeps it from reaching its true storytelling potential.

Ramayana: Rise Of A Legend Is Good – But Could Be Better

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