There’s something positively exhilarating about good music and great dance. Watching people move in perfectly flawless and sometimes artistically symmetrical form is inspiring. It makes you feel like putting the boombox on, tap a few steps yourself. That’s roughly how ABCD 2 affects its audience. It’s an infectious experience of stunning dance moves and thrilling music. It’s a feel good film, better still it makes you happy and it energises your senses.
Dance movies are choc-a-bloc full of dance. No brainer. They’re also, almost always, slightly frivolous in terms of the story. ABCD 2 is no exception. The focus is on performance arts alone. So the story does get a bit tepid. A dishonoured group of young dancers from Mumbai decide to participate in an international dance competition. The idea is to win in a foreign competition and get their honour back. Suresh (Varun Dhawan) is the bright young boy leading the charge. His girlfriend Vinnie (Shraddha Kapoor) is as beautiful as she’s talented. And then you have Prabhudheva reprising his role of Vishnu Sir, from the first film, and helping the group achieve their lofty target as well as sort out his personal life in the process. End of the day, it boils down to a straight laced dance competition where it’s India versus rest of the world, like it happened in Shah Rukh Khans Happy New Year. They should’ve just cut to the chase and concentrated more on the competition and shrunk the build up.
What the bare minimum story does achieve is that it lets the focus rest solely on the dance in the competition. And boy is the dance good. If you’ve seen the Step Up movies you’ll know what to expect from ABCD 2. If you havent just picture Hrithik Roshan, Madhuri Dixit, Prabhudheva, Jeetendra, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra all dancing together. The dancing is that good. Sachin-Jigars music is perfectly adequate and spunky. Full marks to director Remo D’Souza and his team of choreographers, dancers and actors. Their efforts give India, its second great dance movie. It’s a definite step up from ABCD. There’s so much dancing here, it’ll leave you huffing and puffing by the end.
The main reason, ABCD 2 makes you sit up and almost jump in your chair is the performances. Actors are dancing like pros and dancers are acting professionally. The stand out jig comes from Varun Dhawan. His near perfect physique and his natural flair for dancing add value to ABCD 2. He’s on top of the versatility game. There’s none of that deathly intensity from Badlapur. Instead he’s transformed into a bundle of energy. Like an all new hero, on top of his game. Shraddha Kapoor matches Varun step for step when it comes to dancing. You can see the effort, you can feel the commitment. This is another top notch performance from a star on a steep ascend. Prabhudheva is a legend on the subject and naturally his performance lives up to all expectations. The supporting cast made up of professional dancers like Lauren Gottlieb, Dharmesh, Punit and Raghav do more than a decent job with their acting.
3D films in Hindi cinema are a rarity. Movies focusing entirely on dance are just as niche. Put the two together and you have a solid proposition for a commercial entertainer. Great looking lead pair, dancing their socks off and the visuals are pretty neat too. ABCD 2 is a dance film that makes its viewer feel like dancing. Michael Jackson would approve!
Remo D’souza’s highly anticipated dance-musical extravaganza, ABCD2 starring Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor has hit the screens today. The film has been released in around 2300 screens in the domestic domain in 2D, 3D and 4DX versions.
The first edition of the film, ABCD was a superhit back in 2013 and Varun-Shraddha’s star power gave this sequel the much desired backing.
Extensively promoted all across the country, it’s targeted for the masses and well as the classes but mainly the younger generation. It is receiving a positive response on the reviews front and has opened to smashing numbers at the box-office thus living up to the expectations and hype.
According to early reports, the occupancy is excellent in Rajasthan and Gujarat, good in Delhi and relatively decent in Punjab and UP. And surprisingly, Mumbai opened to good numbers as well despite the heavy rains. But the water-logging sure did slow down the film’s pace in the metro city.
It’s overall domestic opening day occupancy is 50-55%. As per early trend reports ABCD2 will easily bank around Rs. 12 to 13 crores today.
In fact, it may surpass the opening day collection of Akshay Kumar’s action flick Gabbar Is Back which currently holds the record of this year’s highest opening day collection of Rs. 13 crore approximately. And with no major competition, ABCD2 is all set to mint big time over the weekend and the week to come.
With his 5th film itself, Varun Dhawan has proved that when it comes to the younger crop of actors, he’s the most bankable of the lot. Shraddha Kapoor on the other hand has delivered blockbusters herself. Their fresh pairing, the dance genre and the franchise in question is surely going to make this flick a rage amongst the youth.
Check this space for more updates on the on-goings at the box-office…
