Satria Dewa: Gatotkaca - An Unimpressive Start of the Satria Dewa Universe

When this movie was released in Indonesia few months ago, I did not get to see it since it played in not so many theaters around my home and I was a bit hesitant to go a bit further especially since my wife was not interested. Anyway, lucky for me the film was just released in Netflix 2 days ago. So I was able to watch it from the comfort of my home last night. All right, let's get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Yuda (Rizky Nazar - London Love Story 2, Till Death Do Us Part etc) was a dropped out college student who had to work to make ends meet as his father Pande (Cecep Arif Rahman - Gundala, The Raid 2: Berandal etc) had gone away since he was a child, and his mother Arimbi (Sigi Wimala - Hi5teria etc) was having mental health problem.

After witnessing an incident, Yuda who tried to investigate it with Agni (Yasmin Napper - Persahabatan Bagai Kepompong, Imperfect: Karir, Cinta & Timbangan etc) was caught in the war between what he always thought of the mythical Pandawa and Korawa. Later they had to join forces with Danan (Omar Daniel - Langit Kala Senja etc), his younger brother Gege (Ali Fikry - Kuntilanak trilogy etc) and their mother Mripat (Yati Surachman - Inem Pelayan Sexy, Modal Dengkul etc) who had been keeping track of the Pandawa and Korawa. 

As Yuda dig deeper, he finally realized that he was actually descendant of Gatotkaca. With his newfound power, he had to fight against the Korawa led by the mysterious person behind mask and his right hand man Beceng (Yayan Ruhian - Wiro Sableng Pendekar Kapak Maut Naga Geni 212, Ben & Jody etc). So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I actually had quite high hopes of this movie since I caught glimpses of its trailer where I noticed the visual effects was pretty good. So I watched this with high anticipation. However the first few minutes of the movie did not exactly give me good impression as it seemed to be too dark. I know that it was supposed to be night scene, but it could be given a bit of lighting to make it clearer. Anyway, when the opening credit started, at least it looked interesting and afterwards the scenery was a lot better, with good enough cinematography to show an alternate world of Indonesia.

When we were introduced with the characters, I was a bit surprised to see that some (not all) seemed to be very raw in their performance. They looked to be over acting and not natural. The ones that I thought were quite convincing were only the senior people like Yati Surachman, Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman, while the younger ones sadly I think need more experience and coaching. Aside from those names I mentioned above, there were also appearances by other cast such as Edward Akbar (Foxtrot Six etc) as Agni's father Arya Laksana, Jerome Kurnia (Penyalin Cahaya etc) as Yuda's best friend Erlangga and even few cameos by popular comedians. The story itself was pretty standard and nothing extraordinary, with twists that did not surprise me at all. 

From what I read, this was the movie to kickstart a new franchise of Satria Dewa Semesta (universe) with few more films target to be released in coming years, which is likely the reason it has such an ending. There is a lot of riding on this movie, unfortunately it did not seem to acquire the minimum result to justify its hefty budget (from the ticket sale it did not even make it to 1 million). But probably by showing it in Netflix, it may create the buzz necessary for its future. Btw, likely to ease the movie's production price, there were so many product placements that were too obvious and frankly a bit annoying.

In term of action, I felt they were great when involving the veterans Yayan and Cecep (both played in several movies in Indonesia and Hollywood) but were not as good when done by the others. The fight choreography were actually OK, but somehow we could see they were done at slow pace but they were sped up to make it as though they were fighting swiftly. I am not sure if this because of the editing department or because they did not have fight skill basic in the first place. This was a bit disappointing considering it was supposed to be an action movie. It's a good thing though that the CGI were pretty decent. Lumine Studio as a local visual effects company should be proud of their work. Oh the costume department also did great job. I understand the costume was designed by the same people who made the costume for Daredevil.

Overall to me this movie fell short of my expectation. There were plenty of shortcomings from the over-acting by most of the cast, the fights that were not impressive, the disturbing product placements and some of the scenes that were too dark to see. Story wise is nothing fancy but I am not too particular about that. At least the special effects were good enough and did not look cheap. Having Hanung Bramantyo as the director for this action movie might not be the perfect choice as he was way more experienced in directing drama and religious movies that won critics and audiences heart. Regardless though, the effort to make a different kind of cinematic universe based on the ancient Javanese books of the Mahabharata written by Mpu Sedah and Mpu Panuluh should be appreciated, even if it might not be fruitful.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars