Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea (2021)

Marakkar is a triple National Award winner; one of which is for Best Feature Film. Best film? I really don't think so; not one bit. Marakkar just doesn't hit the mark (but dont worry, it isn't as bad as Odiyan).

Set in the 16th century, Marakkar is the story of Kunjali Marakkar IV; admiral of the Zamorin fleet. It follows the journey of how Mohammed Ali, the last Marakkar as he defends the seas from the Portuguese & then falls prey to the greed of the Zamorins as they betray him (well, that is how Priyadarshan envisioned it).

Marakkar has a huge cast; so huge that even 3 hours can not do justice to even half of them. Prabhu is like the bumbling Gimli from Lord of the Rings because he is only there for comic relief and he wields a huge comical axe! Innocent thinks he is in a comedy film because his dialogue delivery is like that. Siddique, Arjun Sarja & Suniel V Shetty do get decent screen time but they are not used to their potential & neither are the other veterans.

The father-son duo of Mohanlal & Pranav Mohanlal play the younger & older versions of Kunjali Marakkar. Pranav Mohanlal is pretty good in his 30 minute appearance. Mohanlal is also brilliant as the titular character (this is not the fanboy in me speaking). But Marakkar's faults ly in it's plot. Priyadarshan apparently modelled this around a chapter from his grade three textbook (which is quite weird), which makes this 70% a fictional take on the naval chief.

Marakkar is long. It is 180 minutes long, but it actually feels like 5-6 hours because it drags it a lot. The first half is quite engaging and comes to a logical end. But the 2nd half is another movie altogether (I guess this is the part Priyadarshan conjured up). And if Keerthy Suresh's character wasn't there, the 2nd half wouldn't have existed!

Visual effects are good and so are the costumes but the fight scenes are poorly executed. None of the main characters are given any prominence during the fights instead flying limbs and headless torsos are front & centre.

This maybe an ambitious project by Priyadarshan but it is very very tiring to sit through.

Fmovies: There are many rumours going on this movie. Like this film is not worth watching. I say, this movie is worth watching. The movie is longer, movie length is upto 3hrs 1min. It's like complete watching 1 season of mega serial in 1 day. To lengthy Bro. And the music, tried some old, but it's not matching the movie. The music disturbs. And climax was awesome. And main the VFX. First time in Malayalam film industry using a good visual effects, it's awesome. Then the direction felt like old camera movement, improve it Bro. You can watch this movie. It's worth watching but only one time watchable...

Marakkar is a decent attempt and a one time watch (sans the hype). The cinematography, costumes, sets etc. Are quite well done. However, the core of the movie is amiss. The story and characters are all over the place and none of the arcs are well developed. It's just poor direction from Priyadarshan, throwing so many characters into the mix for no good reason whatsoever. All the plot lines are so short and meaningless, that nothing sticks. I watched it on the first day and took my family along as well, and it was truly an excruciating watch for my parents since it's 3 hours of boredom with no story. Mohanlal still has so much to offer and I really hope good directors take advantage of his acting prowess and producers spend big money on promising projects, unlike this one.

Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea fmovies. Priyadarshan and Mohanlal had a symbiotic relationship. Boosting each other's skill and market with every movie. But that was till last decade. 'Oru maruboomikadha' was dull but at times hilarious thanks to the cast performance.

This, the biggest film in both their careers, hyped as "technically most perfect", with an ensemble star cast, is absolutely pathetic and torturous to watch. Priyadarshan seemed over confident that his laziness is prominent throughout the film.

Mohanlal seems to have given up on acting that his dialogues lacked energy and so did his performance. A swashbuckler film with no enjoyable action scenes. Mohanlal being the lead, has only one fight scene that too hung by ropes.

Filmmakers considering the audience as some 12th century tribe who haven't seen films is stupidity. Priyadarshan is stupid. Yes. Making a very bad rip off of Braveheart and claiming to be a victim of social media fan fights is irritating disappointing and heart breaking. Also the obese mohanlal who moves like a snail is not apt for an action film.

What to watch? The visuals- the cinematography and CGI.. brilliant. That doesn't make a film.

Bad dialogues, poor research, ripping of Braveheart , lazy making results in a movie that falls miles down its true potential.

Dear Priyadarshan who entertained us for decades, kindly take a break till you have a good original story and screenplay. Mohanlal the actor who gave kalapani, narasimham, thanmathra and even Lucifer is lost somewhere in a pool of ego pampered by his fans and morons surrounding him.

Good luck both of you.

• Fight scenes (even though inspired from many movies) were awesome. Sets were also good. That's all the positives of this movie.

• Story telling is fast and didn't make much connection with audience.

• Too many casts were spoiling the story telling way. We don't feel any emotional connection with any characters.

• Many scenes are copied from English movies. Not sure if director is thinking the audience as fools. In this era of technology, everyone have mobile and can easily find out if a scene is copied or not.

• May be it was better if the movie was developed as a 2 part movie with good story and well defined characters.

It's not worth talking about the historical significance of the film because the director itself claimed that the film has only 30% of historical factor rather all other events are merely fictional. The titular character, Kunjali Marakkar is a historical person (where the film's protagonist is Kunjali Marakar IV), and some of the elements flavored on the path of the story have that kind of historical significance. The Zamorins governance, invasion of the Portuguese, etc are the noted historical connotations. When we heckle the traces of Marakkar's legacy at the verge of the freedom movement we get the clear idea that all the marks pointed in the history is totally not at all history but it is something mythical in context. So we can't argue about the exact validation of the things that the film shows and the historical shreds of evidence portraying. Just put aside the matter of history, the film Marakkar: Lion of Arabian Sea is not much catchy and has not reached the expected level for me. The term 'expected' only refers to the fuss covered on all sides by filmmakers, news channels, and also among the fans. Actually, I didn't expect anything more from Marakkar because all the fuss that I'm talking about only has validity when the film gets released. After all, it's up to the audience. All that tumult is only a matter of marketing or publicity. Except for that tumult I went for the movie because of some of the factors. The one thing is the director itself. Priyadarshan is a good-crafty director whose visuals have innate quality and freshness. I love his frames and composing. As an admiring filmmaker, I look upon his films not because of the subject matter he discussed but because of those frames. I expect that kind of frame in this film and he didn't disappoint me. The next thing that urge me to watch the film on the first day is the acclamation received for the film at the National awards. It bagged the best feature film, Visual effects, and Costume design recognition at National Awards. I completely agree with the Visual Effects and Costume Design section but I don't know why the jury selected this film as the best feature one. I think they are mistaken. The main problem relies on the script itself. The movie lacks its core on the progression where it can't connect the emotion among the audience. It has visual assistance with CGI but more than the gimmicks of visual effects the film swirled into dialogue to dialogue presentation. I felt that the director intentionally packed dialogues in each and every corner of the movie. It is a big film; in content and making but can't be valued as a good one because it lacks the nucleus that a film must-have.