ABCD 2

If you are considering ABCD 2 as a movie, then it is just an average drama that follows the usual formula of underdog victory. But as a two and half hour long dance piece, it has more than enough to keep you engrossed to the screen for the variety of styles and of course the beautiful visualization. Just like the first part, this second part of the ABCD (desi step up) is a charmless story told with abundance of dance.

The basic introduction to the movie was given there in the trailer itself. Suresh (Suru) has this team of dancers who performed in the national level television reality show. Due to their own mistakes and lack of creativity they got thrown out of the championship. The movie basically tells us the story of Suresh and his team’s effort to become the champions of the international hip hop competition under the coaching of Vishnu.

Well the story is based on the real life achievement of Mumbai’s fictitious dance group. But I must say that it looks like the true story has undergone severe alterations to make it like a festival mood movie with all the clichéd elements we have seen in these competition mood movies. The character of Vishnu is unnecessarily given a negative touch. There is this romance that goes through almost all the phases of a typical Hindi rom-com. One guy who hides his health issues, someone who gets hurt to give the plot some tension, the opponent also clapping out of admiration and enormous amount of patriotism through songs and dance moves. All these elements mixed in a very predictable way make the recipe of ABCD 2. Remo’s confidence in his choreography saves the movie as we get to see too much of dance in it.

On screen I would say Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor have done quite a brilliant job to keep up with the dancers around them. Remo has obviously taken them away from some of the risky moves (the final performance for eg.), but still the actors looked like members of the team with their enthusiasm. Performance as actors was also quite good. Prabhu Deva as usual performs nicely as a dancer but wasn’t that convincing as an inspiring dance master. Almost the entire top Indian dancers are there in the movie showing their extraordinary dancing skills.

Remo D’Souza as a film maker hasn’t done much to make his movie emotionally gripping. The story written by him isn’t that awe inspiring too. You will remember the glimpses of Chak De India, Rock On etc. while looking at the structure of the whole story. The dance is the highlight of this whole franchise and Remo and his team has done a fabulous job in getting the best out of these performers. Vijay Arora’s cinematography captures the style of dancing effectively and Sachin-Jigar duo has composed impressive tunes to give more charm to the dance moves. Except for the opening credits sequence, the 3D effects don’t really make an impact.

Overall, if you are a diehard fan of dancing, there is enough and more for you to watch and appreciate. But just like its first part ABCD 2 is also an average cinema filled with hell a lot of dance. The rating is 2.5/5.