Student of the Year 2

STUDENT OF THE YEAR is stupid, pointless and an unnecessary sequel!

With wafer-thin plot, implausible screenplay and terrible acting, this fluffy sequel from Dharma Productions is all gloss and no substance. Despite being full of colour and grandeur, this ill-conceived film comes across as a big-budget B-movie. Avoid this one. It’s dim-witted even for a film on teenagers.

A gifted athlete and kabaddi player, Rohan`s (Tiger Shroff) life takes a turn when he gets accepted to the prestigious St. Teresa College on a sports scholarship. His dream of becoming the Student of the Year by winning the Inter college Dignity Cup seems more closer than ever now. But with an extremely competitive reigning champion giving him hell and two beautiful girls vying for his attention, things are about to get a lot more complicated for Rohan.

Clocking in nearly two and a half hours, this film qualifies to be a case study on pointlessness. In my opinion, the content of this film is barely enough for a one-minute commercial. It’s commendable how they conceived of it for a full feature film. To worsen things, the setting is totally delusional and the writing is superficial. You see some people with gorgeous bodies in an opulent backdrop, doing some or the other inconsequential stuff. While its predecessor, directed by Karan Johar, was also glossy and vain, it still had a plot in place, held substance and was extremely entertaining as a teenage college drama. Alas, in the incompetent hands of director Punit Malhotra, this franchise reduces to merely a shiny mess. I would care to write nothing much about this film, which itself is about nothing. Even the music is strictly average.

Of the actors, Tiger Shroff, as usual hogs all the limelight. His awesome dance moves, gravity defying stunts, and an attractive screen presence are just apt for a film of this kind. But his acting skills are easily amongst the poorest in the industry today. He cannot emote more than two expressions in the entire film, giving John Abraham a run for his money in woodenness. As long as he features in these action/dance oriented movies with low or no substance, he works. Aditya Seal is promising, but is given another superficial character, limiting the display of his calibre. New-comers Ananya and Tara are just passable. All others are forgettable.

To sum up, this sequel is probably the most useless product to have come out of Dharma Productions in recent years. A film which gave us two of the finest talents we have today (Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan) didn’t deserve such a horrible sequel. Avoidable!