Raavan - Too many questions

After a 20 mile drive we got to see Raavan Friday night. I walked out having mixed reactions. It was not totally disappointing but overall it was not a great movie either. At the end of the show there were just so many questions to be asked.

People (esp heroine) were falling left, right and center from cliffs and waterfalls, climbing vines and rocks. Why wasn't anybody hurt? Not even a bruise? a cut?

The man's sister was raped a few weeks back. He was shown frolicking with children in small round boats on rainy days?

Beera angry = Beera happy = Beera upset = Beera normal. No change in expression/body language?

Can a man (savage, barbaric and has all means to gorilla the army out of his territory) forget to avenge for his dead brother and sister at the sight of a woman?

The title of the movie was enough to suggest that the story was based on Ramayan. Was it necessary to draw analogies to everything in the book?

Rain/fog/mist do heighten the drama of the scene. But all throughout the movie? Doesn't it lose the value?

Does a rape victim have to start her dialogue with a smart ass line? "Tumhe bahut chot toh nahi lagi?" Damn you girl..u are close to dead.

I thought music was noisy and too much to take at a time. Was it an attempt to make songs sound tribal?

Mani has tried too hard to make every scene the high point of the movie.

There are good scenes here and there but when they all come together, the puzzle just doesn't fit.

No chemistry/history/geography....nothing between aish and vikram. In fact, I thought Vikram looked intimidated in her presence.

Ravi kishan, Govinda and priya mani were upto mark. Vikram could have and should have been given more footage. Aishwarya was good too. But either AB jr was clueless or director was clueless on how to make him act...i dont know but end result was not so good.

Poor dialogues (very shocking to see this in a mani ratnam movie) forgettable songs (except 'beera beera').

And now I will tell you why I think you should take a trip to the movie hall to watch this one.

Cinematography. I dont know what that encompasses, but in plain english the camera work is just fantastic. If there is anything worth watching on the big screen its the lush forests, the waterfalls and of course Aishwarya in her flowing pretty Sabyasachi salwars. Few scenes are so good, you dont mind them playing it over and over again :)

In the climax of the film 'Anjali', they show the child in the hospital with the glucose (or ivy or whatever) bottle between her thighs. Someone asked me if that's how they did it reality? Shouldn't the bottle be hanging from a pole? I had very strongly said that this was a ManiRatnam movie and he would have done enough research to make sure he is taking each and every shot the right way. Sad, I cannot say the same thing about Raavan.

Just too many loose ends in the story clubbed with confused looking actors made the film very lukewarm.