The movie is basically a world tour for the lead actors, with pointless slo-mo shots and no plotline. The movie opens with the Godhra Train burning on the title credits, which by itself is too long. Then there is the aftermath, and the events of the Bilkis Bano case and other stuff is shown as the origin story for Zayed Masood. This is the part of the movie that has landed in controversy but, it is one of the more bearable parts of the movie. The remaining first half is very incoherent and if it was an attempt at non linear story telling, there is no sorrier attempt than this one. Too many things happen side by side and while they do culminate in being connected in some manner or the other, they execution is just too poor.
There is a scene in the movie where Govardhan is taken to meet KA. All to tell him that he has to come back and save Kerala. What could've been done over a satellite phone call, which Govardhan already owns, is done by sedating him and in many ways the audience as well, and taking him from one place to the other, finally to end up in New York with a Louis Vuitton scarf on. All that happens in that scene is that KA tells Govardhan that he knows why he's there and that both KA and other people have used Govardhan and that KA will use him once more with some vague mention about some game and some rules, which they never bother address thereafter. This is an example of the over the top, unnecessary fluff that the movie greatly suffers from.
The underlying plot is quite simple but nevertheless interesting and could and should been given greater importance. Manju Warrier and Tovino did a good job at that, but that part of the story is dealt with so briefly that it becomes a side plot.
So much time has been wasted in irrelevant mass scenes, with a war on drugs that's won with no effort at all. There is a KGF like scene in Senegal, which is so over the top and unnecessary, like most of KA's scenes. What was great about Lucifer was that there were a lot of things relatable and about politics and drugs entering Kerala. Empuraan, however, takes these things, half heartedly, on to global scale, with no justification to the plot either.
The dialogues in Lucifer also had great importance to the experience but whatever little is spoken in Empuraan elicits no feeling at all.
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