Student of the Year 2

Student of the Year 2 has so many weird things. But the most prominent of them all was mixed martial arts getting called as Kabaddi. There was a recent YouTube video of Karan Johar analyzing a scene from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. And in that video, he was constantly mumbling the word, cringe. I was really happy to see that Karan has understood how lame his movies were back then. But what is even more shocking is the fact that the same Karan Johar greenlit this sequel which according to me is lamer than Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. It seems like a film they made totally for Tiger Shroff which he can submit as a resume if Hollywood offers him a chance in the Step Up movies.

Rohan Sachdev, our hero from a middle-class family aspires to join the posh college named Saint Teresa because his childhood-love Mridula aka Mia studies there. So eventually (in movies) he gets a scholarship to join this la la land where car parking lots have luxury cars, canteen is double the size of a shopping mall food court and amenities that can conduct an Olympics without any issue. But the competitive mentality eventually makes him an enemy in the eye of Manav, the charmer of the college and the two-time winner of the Student of the Year title. So as you saw in the trailer, Manav beats him up and throws him out of the college and what we get to see is the resurrection of Rohan to prove his metal.

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The trailer actually shows the honesty of the filmmakers in my opinion. The entire movie is there for you. And then why this movie? Well if 3 minutes of Tiger Shroff wasn’t enough for you, then this movie is 146 minutes of Tiger Shroff. There is hardly a phase in the script where Tiger is absent. That is exactly the problem with this script. Barring Tiger’s character, there is no other character here that has a considerable arc. The pathetic writing of the movie is the biggest negative here. They are just throwing random competitions to make the movie look like a competition for something. Two of those competitions are dance competitions that begin like something enormous and end in the middle of a forgettable song. And then the movie ultimately shifts into its Chak De India climax where an underdog team wins over the current champions in the most Tiger Shroff way possible.

Tiger Shroff is simply repeating his performance from all his other movies. The guy doesn’t know how to stand or walk like normal people and he is always jumping, dancing and doing the parkour stuff. In emotional scenes, he is too naïve to make us feel for the character of Rohan. Tara Sutaria is forgettable. She lacks grace in being Mia and I feel a lot of the blame should be given to the ridiculous way the screenplay treats her character. Ananya Pandey is perhaps the only actor who got a character that people may remember after the film. Because Punit Malhotra and writer Arshad Sayed generously gave ten minutes to this character to tell us about her problems. Aditya Seal is there with a chiseled body giving a tough a competition to Tiger Shroff in fitness and stale acting.

Punit Malhotra is trying to recreate the texture and tone of the first film. But the problem is mainly the need for a film like this. At a time when movies like Badhaai Ho and Andhadhun are getting the praise and penny, I really wonder why someone like Karan Johar would want to create a franchise from arguably his worst movie. I am willing to keep the logic outside the cinema hall and accept the fact that such colleges and competitions exist. But what I demand is a story with some sort of freshness and some sensibility in the behavior of characters. Rohan loves Mia, Mia Loves Rohan, Mia loves Manav, Shreya loves Rohan, Mia loves Rohan, Rohan loves Shreya; and they want me to believe that there is true love involved in this frigging mess. I liked the Fakira song and the rest of the album was largely forgettable. Ravi K Chandran has tried to make things look as lush and colorful as possible.

Student of the Year 2 is for someone who has enjoyed all the other Tiger Shroff movies. Because this movie also has all the major (only) ingredients of the other films in his filmography; his body, his acrobatics, and his dance moves. I hope someone would tell Tiger Shroff that an actor’s body of work doesn’t mean working on his own body and showing it in every scene.

Rating: 1.5/5

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Final Thoughts

I hope someone would tell Tiger Shroff that an actor’s body of work doesn’t mean working on his own body and showing it in every scene.

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By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.