ABCD 2

Beginning with the downers, ABCD 2 is completely based on a routine formula with no great storyline or script as such. There is a competition lost in the beginning and there is an international contest to be won in the finale as usual resulting in a stale plot. Plus despite having a real life Mumbai dance group as its basic inspiration, the film can still be easily called a clever mix of STEP UP series of the west, the last half an hour of Farah's HAPPY NEW YEAR and the basic plot of replacing an injured co-dancer taken from Yash Chopra's DIL TOH PAGAL HAI hinting towards a love triangle. There are too many illogical cinematic liberties taken by the writers in the film like no reason given for why they copied initially, no problems in the foreign travel by the entire young troupe, the boys easily finding a perfect replacement in an unknown foreign city, a huge difference in Prabhudeva's elegant staircase and the interior of his adjacent room and the undisclosed ailment of one of its key dancer finding no mention towards the end, clearly affecting the end-product.

Plus the biggest disappointment remains its weak soundtrack that though sounds fine while watching the film in the theater, but doesn't give you anything to go for a second listening later after the show is over. Moreover, along with the uninspiring writing, okay dialogues and a sudden end, it's the over-length of the film going into more than 150 minutes that honestly reduces the overall impact on the viewers and they somehow feel 'served less than the promises made' due to the very reason.

Having said that, the film's all clichéd formula still largely works reaching its young target audience since it has one thing in abundance and that too in the purest quality form, i.e. Dance, Stage Performances and their Amazing Moves. So one witnesses a loud applause whenever the youngsters get to see their favourite ones performing on the screen and mind you this doesn't include either Varun or Shradha expectedly. In fact Remo uses his three main underdogs quite intelligently at intervals and the move really works wonders when you get to hear shouts or whistles each time Dharmesh, Punit, Raghav or Lauren (post interval) enter the scene with a quick, smart build-up grooving to some inventive steps.

As ABCD 2 (Any Body Can Dance 2) is solely based on its plot of spellbinding dance performances, the film has an outstanding choreography that is sure going to be loved by the ones who are actually into this particular dance form of Hip-Hop and doing similar stage performances as a team (with an appreciative mention of the actual inspiration behind the theme, Suresh Mukund and Vernon Monteiro in the end credits playing it rightly). So even if you are not a dancer yourself but do enjoy the act of dancing naturally, the spirited dedication and the huge effort is sure going to make you feel the excitement, tapping your foot along with the musical beats, particularly in all its well-conceived stage sequences and the patriotically charged climax.

The film has a remarkable production value, eye catching set- designs, fabulous lighting and superb cinematography (watch out for the love songs) generating a stunning visual end-result, especially in the spectacular opening sequence, a Chaplin inspired performance in the mid and then the charged up finale devoted to Lord Ganesha (along with a tour of the neon-lights lit Las Vegas as an added attraction). Besides this time for a change the 3D technology really becomes a major plus giving you something to cheer for and not just added for the sake of it as usual.

Coming to the performances, this is one of those rare films that is collectively supported by the entire team and not just dependent upon a single person alone due to his or her star-status. Both Varun and Shraddha perform earnestly, displaying a great amount of homework done for their demanding roles and they do impress a lot particularly Varun Dhawan. Here I would specifically like to applaud the two bigger stars for not throwing any tantrums and letting every single person in the film perform freely (taking the center stage) without any ego issues. An example that truly puts these two new generation actors much ahead than their seniors who were known to cut their opponent's role in a film using their star-influence in the industry.

But having praised Varun-Shradha for their generous professional approach, the real heroes of the film still undoubtedly remain the famous performers of the dance reality show, namely Dharmesh, Punit, Raghav, Sushant and the gorgeous Lauren Gottlieb also doing well in the acting department. Prabhudeva continuing from the first part as Vishnu Sir surprises you with a well handled emotional act besides his repetitive yet (always) impressive dance moves. Also the cameos of Tisca Chopra, Kapil Sharma, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Pooja Batra and Ganesh Acharya do contribute a bit in their given scenes.

To give the entire team their deserving respect, a film like ABCD 2 is certainly not an easy one to make conceiving a differently engaging dance act for every individual artist, for every major event in the script progression, for all its love-songs and the pumped up finale involving hundreds of artists performing together in the same frame on the lavishly designed bright sets.

However if only Remo could have stressed more on the storytelling part, reducing the overall duration of the film giving less emphasis to its full length love songs having a better edit, ABCD 2 would have reached a much wider audience offering a non-stop music and dance festival moving ahead than its original hit.

Let me tell you something first - I could hardly survive the "Step Up" films even though the dance sequences in those films were spectacular and those films had a story, no matter how bad the story was.

This film does not even have a story. Its just 2.5 hours of "people dancing". OK, I get the point - Its a dance film but still it is a FILM. It must have at least an iota of story. Unfortunately this film struggles with the story. They made it just to earn money and it paid off. It has already collected 14 crores on the very first day despite heavy Rains in many parts of India and Ramadan.

Now, let me tell you more about the film. It stars Varun Dhawan (who is yet to impress me because he was bad in every movie I have seen him in), Shraddha Kapoor and Prabhudeva (You sir, are a good dancer but why are you trying to become an actor?). So we have 3 stars but none of them gives a good performance. Either they did this film just for money or they were bored with all the "Dance thing".

The story of this film is ordinary and has been done to death before by countless movies in different ways - A group of wannabes join hands with an instructor to help them achieve their goal.

The dance sequences are good (I will have to give them that) but why did you make a movie just to show dance? There is too much dance in this film. Even Michael Jackson did not dance this much in his lifetime. They could have easily shortened the length of this movie by at least 40 minutes. The length of this film is god awful 2.5 hours (You can watch 2 animated movies in 2.5 hours). So you get 2.5 hours of dance sequences for 300 bucks. Now, thats a deal no one can refuse (Just joking).

The characters are thrown into the movie from god-knows-where without any kind of character development, so you get half-baked characters. Half of the people in theater were trying to understand them but it doesn't matter. You know why? because all they do is - Dance, so you need not worry about them. There are so many sub-plots and they don't add anything to the story. There are some scenes that are so annoying that you want to throw your bucket of popcorn onto the screen. These scenes exist because they had to show something in between the dance sequences otherwise there would only be dance sequences.

"Poor acting" by almost every character adds up to the frustration and makes you feel like vomiting.

The screenplay is bad, direction is sloppy and writing is awful.

The only good thing about this film is - Dance, but there is too much of it. None of us wants to see this much dance in one go.

So if you are hoping for a good story then you will be disappointed. This film does not deliver, it does not know what it is trying to be. I am giving it more than 1 because of the "good choreography" otherwise I would have given it "1". So watch it only if you are interested in watching "Dance".

I watched the movie first day, first show and according to me it was not worth it. It was all over ABCD(2013) again except it had a better cast to attract more viewers this time. For a matter of fact, I like dance and respect every form of art so there is nothing like personal bias. I think the plot wasn't strong enough to keep the audience enthralled. There were many dance performances (some you may find meaningless) but the last one is surely gonna steal your heart but there is no storyline and one may feel that the movie is getting boring at times. Though there are no distractions such as a side love story or anything like that but we can't figure out what the movie is trying to convey. I would suggest people to go out some place other, rather than wasting their time and money on the movie. In anticipation of better dance movies in future.

ABCD2

Dance India Dance, and burn all the stages

This is it! Remo D'souza has always delivered more than what is expected. May it be FALTU or the initial ABCD. This movie is not a sequel as it has entirely different story catering everyone who has missed the first part. I urge the audience to watch it in 3D as the team at Walt Disney has done marvelous job in graphics, making it compulsory to watch in theatres.

The entire movie is a musical and dancing delight backed-up by excellent cast. Varun Dhawan has literally worked very hard to deliver the expected choreography. On the other hand, Shraddha Kapoor has raised her standards in performance at a new height. All other characters are from the dance reality show on Zee TV - Dance India Dance. Children were very excited to see Raghav (Crockrozz) performing and delivering occasional humour.

It is always good to see talent over-taking poverty. According to Remo this story is of Fictitious Group of Nallasopara, their ups and downs. It is but obvious that Shraddha couldn't perform those twists and splits, hence she was purposely injured for Lauran to take over and burn the dance-floor. But, overall the sequence of activities were perfectly arranged.

It is till date the best work of Remo as he had a full time support of the dancing legend Prabhudevaa. For giving me goosebumps in the climax sequence and taking into consideration the overall performance, I am bound to give it 7/10 at IMDb. Expecting a BINGO from the team in the future.

Clearly if some people blame Mad Max for having so less dialogues, they must see ABCD 2. I can easily count the dialogues in the movie, on my fingers, of one hand.

Lets start with the plus point, the choreography and the music for those competitions was really new, refreshing and adequate for a movie based on dance. But remember, it is still a MOVIE based on dance, so there must be some story in it, here it wasn't.

About the dance numbers also, they are very long, you don't have to show it all, if you have choreographed it, where are the editors? This movie also displayed the cliché of the previous one when they show you the glimpse of performance of other groups and when THE group come on the stage, the group on which the movie is based, they present a very long performance with everything in it. In the end they will put sentiments for the movie goers by presenting something Indian in every performance.

So, yeay! to all the dance but noooo! to everything else. Wanna see dance with a few dialogues stuffed in between, go see it.