ABCD 2: Too Much Dance, Too Much Glitz But Not Too much of Story
ABCD revived the genre of dance based movies in 2013, which gave Mithun and B Subhash success in the 80’s. It cemented Remo D’Souza as a sought after director and gave India its first answer to Hollywood’s movie “Step Up”…..
Remo takes the sequel ABCD 2 a step further where Vishnu Sir takes another task of training a group of underdogs from Nalasopara which includes Suresh (Varun Dhawan) a waiter, Vinnie (Shradha Kapoor) a hair stylist and a bunch of their motley gang to participate in the International Hip Hop contest in Las Vegas.
Well as claimed in the beginning Remo D’souza’s story is inspired by a true story of a dance group from Nalasopara called “Ficticious”. 
Screenplay is by Tushar Hiranandani & Remo himself, which does not give that impact though the story is awe inspiring saga of bunch of nobodies who become somebody. The screenplay emphasizes more on the dances than on the story making it look like a Dance reality show. It lacks the emotional quotient. There are too many tracks one of Vishnu and his family, one of Suresh and his dancer mother, a dancer Vinod who has some ailment but none of these tracks make any sense in the overall scheme of things and it just remains just a track to increase the run time. The characters are not fleshed out properly not even of the 3 principal characters Vishnu, Suresh and Vinnie. Overall the ABCD 2 becomes an array of dance events and nothing more.
Dialogues by Mayur Puri, is funny in some sequences but for most part of it the dialogues does not give the required punch especially in the confrontation sequences or emotional sequences and the sequence falls flat.
One thing that stands out is the choreography and the well mounted dance sequences. Rather it is the dance sequences which are the hero of the movie. Everyone knows Remo’s fascination for Hip Hop and he utilizes his love for the dance form in this movie. Choreography by Remo & Terence Lewis is extremely well executed and shot. Especially the “Ganaraya” song in the pre climax, the usage of Ganesh mantras in a Hip Hop form was the best fusion I have seen in recent time. The love song “If you hold my hand” shot at the Grand Canyon is very well executed and the usage of the 3D format particularly for this song is very well utilized. The Climax song is very well choreographed but I just hope the song was also up to the mark.
Performance wise the movie takes does not boast of any stand out performance, Prabhu Deva as Vishnu Sir Looks disinterested all throughout the movie. Varun Dhawan as Suresh tries very hard but gives a very average performance; he actually falls flat in the emotional sequences. Shradha’s portrayal of Vinnie remains average as well. Lauren Gattlieb as Olive is good in Dance sequences but the same cannot be said about her acting skills. Puneet as the deaf & dumb dancer Vinod and Dharmesh as the dancer from Gujarat still stand out with their performances as compared to the rest of the dancers. Tisca Chopra is wasted in a miniscule role of Vishnu’s wife. Pooja Batra as the owner of an Indian Restaurant does not have much to do than smiling in all the frames. Overall the movie is very weak in performances.
Music by Sachin-Jigar is as peppy and melodious as it was for ABCD. Some of the songs like “Chunar” sung by Arijit Singh is a stand out and so is the “Ganaraya” song which basically mixes Indian classical ragas with foot tapping sounds.
Remo wins brownie points for the well executed and choreographed songs, but fails in creating an overall impact especially due to the lack of story and absence of any emotional quotient or should I say not so well executed emotional sequences. Somewhere the movie does not connect and remains as I said earlier an array of well mounted dance sequences….
For dance lovers the movie is a treat but rest it is just an average dance movie….It will go with 2 and a half stars….
Movie Rating: 
(2.5 / 5)
If you have not seen the trailer yet, click the link below
Official Trailer : ABCD 2
Remo D’Souza continues Vishnu Sir’s (Prabhu Deva) journey in ABCD 2, which is a step up on the first part ABCD in terms of scale and grandness… This installment the cast comprises of Varun Dhawan […]