A Rs 4,000 crore film. A two-minute AI fix. And a social media debate that refuses to die down. The teaser of Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana, starring Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, has ignited one of the most heated conversations in recent Bollywood memory – not about its cast or scale, but about the quality of its visual effects.
The viral AI fix that called out a blockbuster
X user Mahika Jadhav, who seems to be a growth and strategy professional according to her profile, posted a side-by-side comparison on X on April 4 that quickly racked up over 872k views.
Her critique was precise: in the teaser, dust doesn’t stick to skin, wind has no clear direction, hair barely reacts, and lighting appears disconnected from the storm in the frame. Using AI tools, she claimed to have corrected the physics in just two to three minutes – adding wind vectors to the hair, fixing light scattering in dust, and grounding the visuals in actual physical logic.
“I fixed basic physics which a Rs 4000 Cr film couldn’t,” she wrote, adding, “Did this in 2-3 mins, thanks AI.” The before-and-after images were stark, and the post struck a nerve with audiences already divided over what they had seen in the teaser.
One user commented, “This movie is cooked, another Adipurush type failure.” While another commented, pointing out the effectiveness of AI: “not gonna lie this looks way more real now but also kinda scary how fast AI can fix stuff like this what even is the point of big budgets then 😅”
There were others who pointed out that the AI-enhanced version looked better than the original saying, “And it really looks better, hope makers change these things as they have enough time for CGI and vfx.” And yet another simply noted, “And it made a world of difference. Even if we don’t know or think about these irregularities, our subconscious tells us it looks fake, and immediately turns it into cringe. What I don’t understand is how come these VFX experts not know this.”
A film under scrutiny – and a Bollywood star who responded
Since the teaser dropped, some viewers praised the film’s scale and ambition, while others criticised the perceived overuse of CGI, calling it emotionally disconnecting. Many went further, describing the visuals as looking like a “video game.”
The film has been produced by Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Studios in association with the eight-time Oscar-winning DNEG – the studio behind films like Dune and Interstellar – and Yash’s Monster Mind Creations. That pedigree has made the criticism sting even more for supporters of the project.
Into this fray stepped Hrithik Roshan, who took to Instagram with a lengthy, thoughtful defence of large-scale filmmaking. “Bad VFX is if the movie promises photorealism but fails. Or if it aims for a storybook style but isn’t beautiful enough. But to say storybook VFX isn’t photorealistic isn’t fair – it’s not meant to be,” he wrote.
He urged audiences to move beyond the question of realism and instead ask whether the visuals serve the story. “Next time don’t just ask, ‘Is it real?’ First ask, ‘Is it right for the story? Is it making me feel what the maker intended?’ Debate it. But debate it with awareness,” he concluded. When a fan pressed him further in the comments, he kept it simple: “Wait till you watch the entire movie before you judge.”
Style choice or technical shortfall?
The debate cuts to a deeper question about Indian cinema’s visual ambitions. Supporters argue that a mythological epic demands a heightened, otherworldly aesthetic – not the gritty photorealism of a war film. Critics counter that basic physics errors, the kind Jadhav flagged, are not stylistic choices but oversights that a production of this budget should not afford.
Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, Ramayana stars Ranbir Kapoor, Yash, Sai Pallavi and Sunny Deol, with the first part scheduled for release on Diwali 2026 and the second part arriving Diwali 2027. With months still to go before release, the makers have time to address the feedback. Whether they will is another question entirely.