Ranveer Singh reviews Alia Bhatt-Ranbir Kapoor’s Brahmastra, says Bollywood has to up its game to attract audience

As Ranveer Singh inaugurated FICCI Frames Fast Track 2022 in Mumbai on Tuesday, he took the opportunity to share his experience of watching Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra, featuring Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy, Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna, Shah Rukh Khan and others. The actor said, “I thoroughly enjoyed the Brahmastra experience. A big round of applause for my friends who have created Brahmastra, the Astraverse, a fantastic big screen offering. It is nothing like we’ve seen in Hindi cinema and I really appreciate the efforts of my friends for putting it out there.”
The actor also shared how watching a movie in a theatre after a gap of two years of the pandemic was special for him. He shared, “Äfter pandemic when I went back to the cinemas, I realised how much I missed this. That experience is very special, to sit in this dark theatre with so many people and have this joint cathartic experience. I feel going to the cinema is like life itself. According to me, like life, it is a shared experience. What is my joy if I’m not sharing it with you? Life is difficult, our job as entertainers is to entertain people, deliver some kind of escape through entertainment and a pertinent social message as well.”
Ranveer Singh further shared how the pandemic impacted him personally. “I’ve seen a personal evolution. The pandemic has changed me and deeply affected me personally, as it has to everybody, the whole world. Not just cities and states, but the entire planet was affected, and no exception. A lot of time for introspection and coming out of it feels like a start of a new chapter and I’m committed to making it a glorious chapter with all the learnings,” the actor said.

Ranveer said as filmmakers and actors, they have an extra onus on them to make the theatre-going experience a memorable one for the audience. “I think when it comes to the Indian entertainment sphere, my observation has been that we’ve rapidly accelerated to where the western spheres are now. The gulf between big screen entertainment and home entertainment has become very dinct. In the past year, the films that have been released, there is now a clear dinction between what is meant for the big screen — they need to have big screen appeal, visual spectacle, the scale that you can’t really experience at home, or they should be a community watch. They should be something that you have a better experience sitting with a large bunch of people and laughing and crying. That community viewing experience is very very important for any offering. It is not the same when you’re watching alone, sitting on your couch. So, we’ve rapidly accelerated. I think it is a completely new landscape with the rise of new verticals and now I feel like it is one big giant entertainment landscape. Our Indian audiences are watching shows that have been created in other countries and the reverse is happening as well.”
The actor also said that the audiences’ time, effort and energy spent in going to cinemas has to be justified with good content as there are many easily accessible avenues for entertainment available. “We now have so many avenues to export our culture, our talent, our skills and our stories. At the same time, the onus is on us creators because now we know that the average Indian consumer has an access to any piece of entertainment from anywhere in the world at the click of a button. So really there is extra onus to very deliberately look at the content you’re creating. It is very important to keep our audiences entertained. So personally, I’m committed to the big screen cinema and I’m very excited about my upcoming releases as well.”