With Judwaa 2, David Dhawan is doffing his hat to his own creations – his 1997 release, Judwaa, and his 1987-born son, Varun Dhawan.
The story is the same, even the music has been rehashed. Then why then watch Judwaa 2 when you can simply replay the original? The only reason could be that there is no other new film this week.
The story has been photoshopped from the Salman Khan-starrer for convenience and is preposterously dim-witted.
Twins Raja and Prem are separated at birth when a smuggler named Charles (Zakir Hussain) kidnaps one of them. The parents, fearing the worst, relocate to London.
Prem grows up to be a bespectacled, "seedha saadha" boy, while Raja is the quintessential Mumbai tapori.
Prem and Raja don't just look identical, they also have a conjoined nerve reflex – if one of them punches someone in the face, the other will involuntarily mirror the action.
This snaps credulity to a snapping point, not to mention the fact that it is irritatingly non-consistent.
Varun Dhawan is adorable and charming, so a double scoop of him doesn’t really hurt.
But Taapsee Pannu and Jacqueline Fernandez have been dumbed down to play dancing partners and pretty mannequins to keep the hero company. This is 2017.
Twenty years is a long time for an audience to evolve and crave something new. Judwaa 2 employs tropes, like a lisping sidekick or a villain who is struck by a sudden bout of amnesia, have been done to death.
Some scenes will, no doubt, elicit guffaws and chuckles, but for a David Dhawan film, such moments are few and far between.
Varun Dhawan has oodles of charm, but daddy dear must let him discover his own groove instead of pitchforking him into a Salman-Govinda zone.
From slapstick cameo, to skin show, to a Salman Khan cameo – Judwaa 2 employs every trick in the book, but it all depends on your silliness threshold.
I give it 2 Quints out of 5!
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)