Rock on 2 review: The film fails to spin the magic of the original and so does the music

Rock On 2
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Shraddha Kapoor, Purab Kohli, Prachi Desai
Director: Shujaat Saudagar
Music: Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy
Producers: Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani

Can you tell us one reason why you remember the 2008 film ‘Rock On!!’? We know, most of you would smile and say, ‘of course music’! Yes, the music was just so magical that we listen to the numbers today as well! If you are asked to choose your favourite track from the film, you would probably have a tough time choosing between peppy numbers like ‘Rock On’, ‘Socha Hai’, ‘Sinbad the Sailor’ or soft romantic numbers like ‘Ye Tumhari Meri Baatein’ or ‘Tum Ho Toh’. Just a minute, why are we discussing ‘Rock On!!’ and not it’s freshly released sequel ‘Rock On 2’? The answer is simple, ‘Rock on 2’ fails to spin the magic of the original and (unfortunately) so does the music (sigh!).

‘Rock On 2’ deals with the story of the band ‘Magik’ coming together, but every character battles a struggle of his/her own. Aditya Shroff (Farhan Akhtar), Joe Mascarenhas (Arjun Rampal) and Kedar Zaveri aka KD (Purab Kohli) have aged (obviously! It’s been 8 years since Rock On!! happened) but they are still very very charming! The addition to the sequel is Jiya (Shraddha Kapoor) and Uday (Shashank Arora), who are talented but need a break. Jiya is struggling hard to to make it big as a rock singer but faces serious opposition from her father, who is a classical musician and does not consider any other kind of music as sane (Rock probably being blasphemous to his ears).

Magik has dispersed. Aditya is disturbed by the untimely death of a young musician, for which he holds himself responsible and seeks redemption (which he tries to get by doing social work in some distant Meghalayan village). His son is named after Rob ( played by Luke Kenny, who died in the prequel and nobody seems to remember him in the sequel as they are so busy with other things in their lives). Joe is a reality show judge and a club owner, while KD is desperately trying to reunite the band. (Sadly enough his character lacks depth). Prachi Desai continues to play the lonely wife, seeking her husband’s company. No one knows why Joe’s wife Debbie (Shahana Goswami) is just in a guest appearance this time, despite delivering a powerful performance in the earlier film. Shashank Arora, who was terrific in ‘Titli’, doesn’t get a fair chance to showcase his talent here.

The story, co-written by Abhishek Kapoor (director of Rock On!!) and Pubali Chaudhuri seems half-hearted and semi-baked. However, the film scores high in the cinematography and photography (thanks to the Director of photography, Mark Koninckx). It’s a bit difficult to believe that ‘Rock On 2’s music has been composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, the same composer trio who weaved magic with their instruments in ‘Rock On!!’. While ‘Rock On 2’ fails miserably to its prequel especially in music, we have just one question, was it very necessary to make Shraddha Kapoor sing? (Is there a drought of female playback singers in Bollywood?) To sum it up, the inconsistent 139 minutes is not tight or interesting enough to hold your attention and raises an inevitable question, ‘Was Rock On 2 very necessary?’ No, we are not asking you to skip the film, not at all. Please go for it if you have not visited Meghalaya yet as we bet the film can be a beautiful advertisement for Meghalaya tourism!

Our rating: 2/5