Goddess

Goddess (a.k.a. Devi) was originally a Telugu film that apparently wowed the Indian audiences at the turn of the century with its supposedly very unique special effects (or SFX) -- since it was first released theatrically on the Indian screen back in 1999/2000 -- but I personally found at least most of those effects there to be shockingly rather schlocky like a lousily-transferred Godzilla film, with some of the editing cut-and-pasted together like it was out of a bad "Three Stooges" episode to make room for some of the SFX indeed... cheap, cheap, cheap!!As for the drama in this movie, it is handled like a tired, blandly formulaic soap opera that is regularly seen on most foreign TV these days... just look at the acting, which is plain dopey, cornball, and sometimes just too on-the-nose for its own good. You know your film is in some serious bleep here when some of the actors look directly and most oftentimes constantly at us viewers watching the film through the screen while delivering their lines desperately.Speaking of which, even in English subtitles, the dialogue delivery is handled in a rather slipshod and sometimes cringe-inducing fashion... especially as well in a brief confrontation at the start of the second hour between Devi and a sworn enemy that takes place right in the middle of her conversation with her own spiritual father who is inside of a strange ship made out of snakes. The musical numbers range from average at best to pretty atrocious at worst, and the comedy bits are just deadly and downright preposterous as well, as typical of such a poorly-done, by-the-numbers Bollywood film (with a handful of OUTSTANDING exceptions like 1942: A Love Story on DVD and Jodhaa Akbar on Blu-Ray, both fantastic Hindi films that you *really* must go seek out and watch indeed!!).The film quality is absolutely tacky, like it was out of some terrible 70's low-budget movie on VHS, with some hisses and crackles in-between. Some to a lot of the actors -- including the child actor as well as the picture progresses -- excruciatingly irritate and get on your nerves completely like fingernails scratching deeply against the blackboard in wide stretches repeatedly as you watch the film, but Prema (as the character Devi) handles herself well in some of her performances... even then, she cannot come anywhere close to saving this movie from being a sure-shot disaster, let us just say!!!Another thing, the real main enemy that Devi faces is a darker-skinned deity as you will see later in the film, which proves as a blatantly repulsive stereotype that lighter-skinned people are good and darker-skinned ones are just evil. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.All factors considered, I did not even care for the film Goddess or what happens to the characters at all, because the film just bored me especially and goes on and on and on with its overlong, overblown length of about 2½ hours long, too!! Thumbs way, way down from me, and you should DEFINITELY avoid this one at all costs. Simply dreadful. ~_~

This film has wonderful music and a gripping plot amok with great characters and nail-biting suspense, and a smattering of state of the art special effects and movie magic to round it out. Highly recommended for anybody who enjoys having a good time.