It was total disappointing for me after Kites! ( My own perspective)... Till date when compared to all the masterpieces from Maniratnam, this came as a total shock to me. First half had an experience of watching 'Discovery channel' and some episode of sony's 'Mujhe Is Jungle Se Bachao' reality show! Abhi and Aish roaming around in jungles, and aish's eternal trials to escape from Ravan aka 'Beera' and yes the annoying 'chaka chaka chaka chaka' of Abhi! Santosh Shivan tried to give raw look to the movie regarding the cinematography!
Best of the talents were underutilized like Govinda aka Hanuman (I still wonder why did Govinda agreed to this role in first place, might be his high regards for Maniratnam), Priyamani (the supposed to be 'Surpanaka, but alas victim in the movie , in original epic surpanaka was the reason for abduction of Sita, here also to some extent) and vikram.. other than being a ruthless and unethical person, he doesn't have much to do in the movie. Abhishek though was not that much deep into the role initially, did a fantabulous job in second half. Aishwarya, yup, she too was good! but still nothing much to do, other than being tied up / blindfolded / gagged for almost 60% of the movie. The gradual transformation / mellow down of 'Ragini' aka 'Aishwarya' was fine.
There were certain scenes, which actually were very critical for movie, but weren't captured properly. Dialogues also, weren't that great; even the story demanded very strong and impacting dialogues.
What was on Maniratnam's mind, he only should better say in his own words. He wanted the story to be based upon Ramayan epic; no one can deny it! but still it has very weak narration and screenplay; it lacked the depth, generally which Maniratnam movies has!
Whomever want to watch this movie! go with zero expectations, else you cannot enjoy! In first place, better forget for 3 hours that actually it's a Maniratnam's movie. Still I cannot understand, what did Maniratnam want to experiment with 'Ravaan'?...