Student Of The Year 2

This is the film which should have introduced Tiger Shroff. Great production values, a love triangle, and plenty of opportunities for him to showcase his chiselled body, not to mention his mastery over both dance and action. Alas, that wasn't to be and we had to wait for five years for him to get a proper big studio entry. By this time, he had already established himself as an action star.

First, let's understand the ground rules. These were set not in 2012 when Student of the Year released but in 1998 when Karan Johar made Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Way back then, we all made peace with the fact that educational institutes in Dharma movies were a singularly unique fantasy, inspired largely by American high school movies, with little or no resemblance to Indian schools and colleges.

With Student of the Year, which came out some seven years ago, Director Karan Johar waved his fancy schmancy wand on the campus caper and transformed it into an extravagant scene for all-you-can-consume romance, rivalry and fashion around gourmet cafeterias, state-of-art classrooms and academic tournaments involving disco dancing and treasure hunts.

When Karan Johar decided to direct Student of the Year, it was because after complicated love stories and a very ambitious My Name is Khan he wanted to direct a simple, youthful love story. Reprising the successful Kuch Kuch Hota Hai format (about young love) which catapulted him into the top league of Bollywood's directors was a gamble that paid off well - Johar, playing to his strengths, landed a hit film once again besides flagging off the launch of a series of acting talent under Dharma banner.

First love works the first time. Pehla Nasha was the loveliest song of the smitten - at least for those among my generation - and it worked because of its wistfulness, where the idea of falling for someone felt as special as your own private whirlwind, something nobody would quite understand. Student Of The Year 2 aspires to tread on the same tracks as Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, the film Pehla Nasha was from, but wears romance like an accessory: a medallion that can bounce off the hero's pectorals. "Mere liye school pyar ka mandir tha," says the hero without a touch of irony. "Love temple."

Watching films like Student of the Year 2 should come with a statutory warning: that it is extremely injurious to the health of senior citizen critics like yours truly. The film doesn't just make you acutely conscious of the fact that you have one foot in the grave but builds up this larger existential crisis-how like the mummy papa, chachi chacha, principal, teachers and coaches on screen you see are almost redundant in the larger scheme of things of the post-millenials.

Can a leading man's nice-guy demeanour hold up an entire film? The answer is to be found in the new Tiger Shroff-starrer in town. Shroff has a likeable quality about him, but his facial muscles remain more or less stationary throughout Student of the Year 2, which I suppose could be deemed appropriate considering that the plot itself has not moved since Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan battled it out over a trophy and Alia Bhatt in Student of the Year (SOTY) in 2012.

In 1992 came JO JEETA WOHI SIKANDAR, in 2012 came STUDENT OF THE YEAR, things have drastically changed since then but which era is this SOTY 2?. Rohan (Tiger) a student, athlete, dancer, kabaddi player from the local Pishorilal Chamandas College is head over heels in love with his childhood sweetheart, Mia(Tara Sutaria ). After school, Tara takes admission in the posh affluent St Teresa College. Rohan follows her and gets admission in the same college thanks to his sports scholarship.

Student Of The Year 2 is an unbelievably shallow mix of Karan Johar's Student Of The Year and Mansoor Khan's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, with shaky performances and forgettable songs in an ultra-glamorous setting. It looks like director Punit Malhotra was so overwhelmed by the staggering budget allotted to the film that he directed all his energies towards making everyone and everything look good, and completely forgot to focus on logic and continuity in the process.

A grand edifice meant to be a fount of excellence in education? Check. Pretty young things all buffed and polished wandering around the corridors of the 'college' masquerading as 'students'? On point. The clash of the entitled snobby rich vs the earnest, grounded middle-class? All present and accounted for.

STUDENT OF THE YEAR 2 is the story of triumph, love and making a comeback. Rohan (Tiger Shroff) and Mridula (Tara Sutaria) study together in Pishori Chamanlal college. Both are in love and there comes a time when Mridula changes her college and gets admission in the prestigious St Teresa College. Rohan too wants to get admitted in this institution but knowing that the fees there are too costly, he abandons the plan.

Seven years after Karan Johar's Student Of The Year (2012), an over-the-top, stylish campus-drama that launched bright-lights, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra, Punit Malhotra (I Hate Luv Storys (2010), Gori Tere Pyar Mein (2013) takes over the baton from his mentor for this soulless sequel.

The sequel that nobody wanted is neither an improvement over the original nor a downgrade of it. The bar is low to begin with, and when the butter-limbed Tiger Shroff is around, it's easily surmounted. Karan Johar's Student of the Year (2012) centred on an intra-school athletic competition that was placed on par with a war between nuclear powers.

So, the story (hahahaha!) starts with a flashy sequence in which we see Rohan (Tiger Shroff) playing for Student Of The Year 2's trophy. Next, we see he's from a very ordinary Pishorilal Chamandas college and joins the 'elite' St. Teresa because his girlfriend Mridula aka Mia is in that college. "You can take out a student of Pishorilal but you can't take Pishorilal out of a student" Yes, that sounded wrong but that's what happens with Rohan.

The world has moved on in the seven years since the kitschy college caper Student Of The Year launched the careers of Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra. The actors in the follow-up are a fresh bunch led by Tiger Shroff, but the concoction is exasperatingly stale and unabashedly trashier. Student Of The Year 2 is so last decade in its thinking and packaging that sitting through it is akin to straying into a Bollywood time warp.

A small town boy Rohan Sehgal (Tiger Shroff), madly in love with his childhood sweetheart Mridula (Tara Sutaria), follows her to city's top college. But this new term brings friends, foes and cut throat competition along with heartbreak. Will he bounce back and beat the odds to become the Student of the Year?