By Shane Alliew

Sharjah, August 6, 2022: There’s the original and then there’s the hand tried at reproducing a spinoff of the original.

Running at 145 minutes, directed by Anees Bazmee and starring Tabu, Kartik Aryaan and Kiara Advani, Bhool Bhuliyaa 2 is made on a budget of 900 million rupees and has raked in 2.66 billion rupees declaring it a hit. The questions that beg to be answered, is it?

Between the malevolent spirit of Manjulika and the troubled living Anjulika (both played by Tabu, as twins), the story weaves itself on the legacy of the first film, and is thus an apparent take off from there. The only relationship being the name of the central protagonist, Manjulika and the hit song, to which the very talented Vidya Balan gave an outstanding performance.

In comparison, Ruhaan’s (Kartik) performance is damp and does not match a patch up to the original dance. Well, that’s one aspect, the other being the story itself along with the plot – I asked myself, is there one?

Having contained the spirit of Majulika (Tabu) in a room sealed by divine instruments, Reet Thankur’s (Kiara) family moves to live elsewhere and only returns to the haveli on the recommendation of the young and dashing Ruhaan, a self-declared and village-bumpkins endorsed ‘baba,’ who claims that he connects with spirits of the underground world.

This is validated as he propounds that he speaks with the spirit of the dead Reet, who is actually alive, because she needs to fake her own death, owing to a family complication – her dear sister desires her would-be husband and our lady must rise to the levels of the self-sacrificing sibling. Great – or not so great?

In the middle of this muddle, the room containing the spirit of Manjulika is opened and the famous, “Hell hath no fury, like the scorn of a woman” breaks loose. What next? Story-within-story, deceit within deceit and wow, a spirit rises to the occasion to conspire with humans and avenge the wrongs done unto her – does it not get better and better?

Apart from Tabu doing a decent job in the film, both Kartik and Kiara fall flat – in fact there is no comparison to the power-packed cast of BB1, yet critics will argue that BB2 has raked in the moolah – so good, but every commercially successfully film does not necessarily mean that it has a cutting-edge storyline, or dramatic acting or a powerful plot. This film lacks this and scores high on imaginative collaboration between the spirit world (of talking spirits) and that of humanity, very much like the hilarious dinos collaborating with humans, in our recent dino-blockbusters.

The India web series have done so much more justice, especially in the thriller genre – Sacred Games, Ashram, Pataal Lok, Delhi Crime…the list is endless. Bollywood, here’s a heads up – look up or be prepared to sail down – we need fresher and more sparkling stories!

Rating: 2/5

Shane J Alliew, Sharjah, UAE