Spoilers ahead…
How you respond to ABCD 2 will probably depend on how much you follow dance-reality shows on television, how much you like hip hop moves, and, most important, if you’re still at an age where you squeal when people you like show up on screen. At the theatre, I found myself vaguely… not bored. But then, I don’t watch much reality television. And I certainly don’t care for dance moves that look like C-3PO is having a meltdown. Luckily, the film, in 3D, is quite a spectacle. It uses colour and light the way other films use story and dialogue. Good choice. If they’d stuck to story and dialogue, we’d have laughed it off the screen.
It’s not the clichés. A bunch of bright-eyed kids (among them, Shraddha Kapoor and Varun Dhawan, with abs up to his chin). A reluctant teacher (Prabhu Dheva). A competition (hip-hop dance, at Las Vegas). Plus, some scenes of the team coming together, an inspirational speech when the chips are down, personal problems to be overcome, and a love triangle. It’s what this sort of thing is. Complaining about these clichés is like finding fault with a car for having four wheels and a roof. But some cars transcend the basic design – that never happens here.
For a while, I wondered why the drama was so severely undercooked. The kids are accused of copying dance moves, but we never get a satisfactory explanation. They enter a qualifying event in Bangalore, and we don’t get the nail-biting moment where the judges keep us hanging about the winners. The performance happens. The audience responds positively. Cut to next scene. But it’s a good thing the director, Remo D’Souza, keeps cutting away to scenes of dancing. Otherwise, we may have had to endure more laughable subplots like the one involving Prabhu Dheva. He seems to be auditioning for a part in a spin-off titled Any Body Cannot Emote.
KEY:
- C-3PO = see here
Copyright ©2015 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
MANK
June 20, 2015
Brangan ji, bas itna sa hi! what about shradda kapoor? Does she survive this unscathed. Can she even dance next to prabhu the deva of dancing
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Gradwolf
June 20, 2015
Hahahahaha. Seriously it is enough that Prabhu Deva is now a director. Why do people insist he act.
It still shocks me that he turned in good performances in two very funny films – Kadhala Kadhala and Charlie Chaplin. At least for the former you can point to Kamal.
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Shankar
June 21, 2015
I actually think one of his best films was Ezhaiyin Sirippil… I liked him in that.
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Irfan Syed
June 22, 2015
“Luckily, the film, in 3D, is quite a spectacle. It uses colour and light the way other films use story and dialogue.”
That’s nice and bitchy. It seems this movie is just like the first: one long music video or many such strung together. And worse, it’s 152 minutes’ long. Should have been called: AnyBody Can Edit.
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brangan
June 22, 2015
Irfan Syed: You read that and got “bitchy,” huh? Actually, I meant that as a compliment about the way this film uses light and colour to keep us dazzled — so that we don’t look too much at the story-dialogue part.
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Anuj
June 22, 2015
ABCD 2 is not a bad film but unfortunately its not that good either. Its a decent one time watch only and only for its awesome dance sequences but unfortunately, this movie does not really have much repeat value. At the box office, this is a sureshot winner and a confirmed Hit, thanks to the entertainment it offers via its dance sequences.
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