Bhubaneswar: Mega star Salman Khan’s much awaited and much hyped comeback has turned a thud as the AR Murugadsoss helmed Sikandar has now been under the spell of negative word-of-mouth.

Despite bad-word-of-mouth verdict, the Capital City cinema houses are holding over 111 shows of Sikandar on Monday. 

The Salman Khan starred movie day 1 collection will remain around Rs 30 cr nationally, less than Rs 33 cr by Vicky Kaushal's Chhaava.

Why the mega star's film has so poor opening, depsite the super buzz?: 

The film critics have spoken in unison.  Noted cine critic Taran Adarsh has termed Sikandar Dull. He wrote:

"A letdown... Screenplay, music, direction, even performances are lacklustre... Sky-high expectations from #SalmanKhan - #ARMurugadoss, but all that glitters is not gold! #SikandarReview

#Sikandar is among #SalmanKhan's weakest films... The superstar – with a massive fan following – deserved a better film with strong content, one that truly does justice to his stardom.

#Sikandar is a below-average watch with an outdated plot, weak direction by AR Murugadoss, and a lazy performance by #SalmanKhan. Unfortunately, it fails to impress."

SIKANDAR STORY

The film takes you into the life of Sanjay Rajkot (Salman Khan), the king of Rajkot, and his wife, Saisri (Rashmika Mandanna). Sanjay is not only the king of Rajkot but also the Messiah of the people and is therefore worshiped by everyone. Once, he thrashed a son of a minister for a wrongful act, and there begins a new enmity, followed by a couple of deaths/tragedies. Sanjay must now rectify his mistakes, which takes him to Mumbai.

WHAT SIKANDAR LACKS?

Here is where Sikandar misses the wood, as per film crtics (Filmy Ashiq).

• The First half is good though nothing great but still entertaining enough
• Second half ruined the film all the way
• Climax is shockingly worst
• Salman is good but his charisma is completely missing this time
• Rashmika is good in special appearance
• Kajal Agarwal is just like an extra in film. 
• Supporting cast are not impressive including Sharman Joshi who has nothing to do. He did what actors like Gubachan, Mac Mohan used to do as a henchman in old films but actually it's not fair to compare with them because they still had screen presence but Sharman couldn't impress at all. 
• Satyaraj as main villain totally wasted. Still thinking why he did this role which is very less and had nothing to do
• The thrill factor like Ghajini & Holiday is totally missing which we were expecting from AR Murugadoss. 
• Overall only big fans of Bhaijaan will like this otherwise its a one of big budget disappointment and among weakest films in recent times so "Sikandar" is strictly only for die hard fans of Salman Khan

According to film critic Sumit Kadel, 

“AR Murugadoss has made films like Ghazini and Holiday in Bollywood (both remakes) to earn a good reputation, and now he has made Sikandar to destroy that goodwill. Yes, Sikandar shows you how bad a filmmaker he can be when everything goes wrong. It's shockingly bad; you don't really expect someone like ARM to make such a poor film, which can easily be called his WORST FILM EVER.”