patelritiq

6/10

First of all, that opening title card was Beautiful. The word “Maa” written in Hindi, simple but powerful, set the mood perfectly. For a few minutes I thought this was going to be something special. The first half builds good tension, especially around the rituals and atmosphere, but the moment the tree demon shows up, everything collapses. The CGI is laughably bad, and instead of horror I felt like I was watching a rejected superhero-fantasy villain. Honestly, if they had kept the demon in the shadows, it could’ve worked. Show less, scare more. Acting is mixed. Ronit Roy is outstanding, easily the best performer here. He plays menace with real weight, even though the visuals around him ruin half the effect. Kajol is fine, good in bursts, but never fully commanding. The rest of the cast drifts between okay and forgettable. Oh, and the forced Bengali accents on some actors felt odd. There are some interesting elements: motherhood, mythology, patriarchy. But they are buried under weak execution . Horror becomes fantasy, fantasy becomes superhero action, and by the climax it’s so over-the-top that it doesn’t even feel like the same movie anymore. Add confusing subplots (is girl pregnant? why Kajol was gonna kill her?), and it just turns messy. Music is a saving grace, Usha Uthup’s “Kali Shakti” slaps. The Kali Puja scenes and cultural visuals look gorgeous. But pacing drags, editing falters, and scares are basically absent. And compared to Shaitaan? Not even close. That film was sharp, scary, consistent. Maa feels like a confused cousin. Maa had ambition and Kajol’s star power, but ends up more of a fantasy-drama with clumsy CGI than the myth-horror it promised.