Review: 'Ramayana: Rise of a Legend' uses splashy special effects to tell the foundational saga of Hindu mythology — and only get halfway there.

As an American movie lover, watching the Indian epic “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” feels like watching “The Ten Commandments” or “The Greatest Story Ever Told” without ever read the Bible — in that you get a sense of the massive scope of the story, but without the cultural touchpoints that one imagines people in India have engrained in them since a young age.

“Ramayana” begins with the Hindu triad: Brahma, the creator of all life; Shiva, the destroyer and transformer; and Vishnu, the preserver who brings balance to the chaos. The movie tells us that Vishnu frequently picks humans to be avatars, granting them powers to keep the forces of evil from overwhelming the Earth.

The movie introduces us to Dashanan (played by the one-named actor Yash), a mortal who asks Brahma for immortality. When Brahma declines, Dashanan asks for the next best thing: To have the ability to live through anything that the gods, magic, disease or supernatural creatures or forces can deliver. 

Dashanan leaves one loophole, by not asking for protection from humans — though it would take quite a human to defeat Dashanan, who takes the name Ravana, and the armies of demons and giants he amasses in his kingdom, Lanka.

Vishnu, though, has a human in mind who can eventually take on Ravana. That is Prince Rama (Ranbit Kapoor), the handsome and unfathomably virtuous son of King Dashrath (Arun Govil) in the kingdom of Ayodhya. Rama has three brothers — or half-brothers, since the king has three wives — and Rama is closest to Lakshman (Ravi Dubey), who becomes his guardian.

Rama falls in love with Sita (Sai Pallavi), and is being groomed by his father to become king. Then one of his stepmoms, Kaikeyi (Lara Dutta), maneuvers to get her son, Bharat (Addinath M. Kothare), to be king instead. Rama, so wholesome he makes Clark Kent look like a con artist, vows to go into exile to ensure the kingdom’s survival, and Sita and Lakshman opt to go with him.

In exile, though, the trio keep having adventures — which is where you’re reminded that this is the sort of foundational legends that probably inspired everything from “The Odyssey” to “The Lord of the Rings,” whether those stories’ creators knew it or not. At one spot in the forest, I expected Ram to run into the Rodents of Unusual Size, which just tells you how universal these kind of stories are.

Finally, near the three-hour mark, Ravana kidnaps Sita, setting up the long-awaited showdown with Rama. (It can’t be a spoiler if the story is 2,500 years old.) Then come for words that had me howling in laughter: “End of Part 1.” The movie promises that part 2 is coming “Diwali 2028,” which is October of that year. (Diwali is a big movie weekend in India, I learned, much like Thanksgiving is in the U.S.)

What writer-director Nitesh Tiwari delivers here is visually impressive, with freakish monsters, well-choreographed one-on-one fights and massively staged battle sequences that any Hollywood blockbuster would use. (In fact, some of the same Indian-based effects houses the studios employ are used here.) The bigger-than-life fantasy look is assisted by a regal score, by composers Hans Zimmer (“Dune,” “Gladiator” and A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”). 

I can’t say how much I’d recommend “Ramayana: Rise of a Legend” until I’ve seen the second installment. Three hours is a big time commitment for a story with a ton of characters to keep sorted, and if you’re not already versed in the mythology, only after Part 2 will we know for sure if it’s worth the investment.

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‘Ramayana: Rise of a Legend’

★★★

Opens Friday, November 6, at theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and action, and some bloody images. Running time: 195 minutes (in Hindi with subtitles) or 165 minutes (dubbed in English).