Minnal Murali Review - Basil Joseph crafts a spectacular superhero origin story

A lot of Malayalam movies finally got released this year after getting delayed due to the pandemic and quite a few of them had a huge buzz around them. The biggest of these was Marakker starring Mohanlal and the second being Kurup starring Dulquer Salmaan but ultimately these two movies turned out to be rather disappointing.

Now, the third on this list of hyped-up movies was Minnal Murali a superhero movie directed by Basil Joseph and starring Tovino Thomas as the first Malayalam superhero and while the trailers were nice I was skeptical about it, after all, Indian superhero movies have rarely been good.

Minnal Murali is good, soo good that even someone like me who reads too many comic books and watches too many superhero movies liked it. The basic plot of the movie revolves around Jaison a young tailor in a small village who dreams of leaving the country and living in America. However, one day after getting hit by a freak lightning strike he beings to discover that he has strange new superpowers.

Now, this plot is nothing new in fact I would say that Minnal Murali like a lot of movies in the superhero genre borrows elements from the classics like Richard Donner's Superman and Sam Rami's Spiderman movies just to name a few. What makes this movie stand out is the fact that it uses them as inspiration rather than just rip them off completely.

From a technical standpoint, the CGI isn't spectacular but considering the budget and how it blends well with the practical effects it felt fine and the same goes for the editing and camera work. However, the highlight of this movie is not Tovino Thomas who gives a great performance but the saying goes that a hero is only as good as its villain, and what a villain this movie has! Guru Somasundaram is a show stealer and to the credit of this movie is does not go out of its way to make him cartoonish or evil for the sake of being evil.

Is Minnal Murali a groundbreaking superhero movie in the golden age of superhero movies? No, it is not...but it is the start of something special perhaps the era of the Indian superhero movie has begun.