Movie Review: Rock On!! 2

It all started off in the year 2008 when the cinegoers (esp. youth) got treated to a cult and raw musical journey in the form of the Abhishek Kapoor directed film ROCK ON!! And after 8 long years, the makers have come up with the film’s sequel titled ROCK ON 2. Will ROCK ON 2 prove to be a musical hit at the Box-Office, or will it lose its strings, let’s analyze.

ROCK ON 2 starts off with the voiceover narration of ‘KD’ aka Killer Drummer aka Kedar Zaveri (Purab Kohli). The story then mirrors upon the distances covered by Magik band’s members from the prequel till today. Aditya Shroff aka Adi (Farhan Akhtar) gets settled in Shillong to lead an isolated life as ‘repentance’ over a certain mistake. It is here that he finds peace by running his self-initiated ‘Farmers’ Co-operative’ and a school for the poor children. Even though ‘Farmers’ Co-operative’ works selflessly towards the benefits of the farmers, it just does not go well with the local governing officer of that area. On the other hand, Joseph Mascarenhas aka Joe (Arjun Rampal) becomes a successful entrepreneur as well as a judge in one of the TV reality shows. One day, on the eve of Adi’s birthday, the entire ‘Magik’ team springs up a surprise by paying him a visit in the North East to celebrate his birthday. Despite the happy mood, there looms an atmosphere of tension, anger, repentance and anxiety amidst everyone. One fine day, ‘Magik’ sees the inclusion of a struggling musician Uday (Shashank Arora) alongwith Jiah Sharma (Shraddha Kapoor) as its new members. On the eve of the performance, Jiah chickens out on stage itself and is unable to perform because of her father’s resistance to western music. On the other hand, Adi’s adopted village in Shillong gets gutted down due to forest fire. And the money given by the Central government for the welfare aid of the affected farmers gets gulped down by a corrupt government officer in Shillong. This is when Adi and his rock band plan to organise a rock concert in Shillong in order to highlight the plight of the helpless villagers. What is the reason for ‘Magik’s members never-ending guilt, do Adi and his band members become successful in their uphill task of organising a rock show amidst rock solid resistance from their area’s officer, does Jiah’s father accept her modern singing and what secret is Adi hiding from Jiah, is what forms the rest of the story.

When ROCK ON 2’s promos were released, it only rekindled many memories associated with its predecessor ROCK ON!! In reality, ROCK ON 2 sings an extremely different tune (in literal sense). First things first. With absolutely no head or tail to the script (Pubali Chaudhuri, Abhishek Kapoor), the film lands up being a confused mish-mash of too many things. Also, because of the lack of a strong and convincing storyline, the film simply flows all over the place without any ‘direction’. None of the film’s characters are well etched or defined, and hence they fail to build any emotional bond with the viewers. As a result of this, the viewers do not feel sympathetic or empathic towards any of the characters. As the film drags endlessly, one just cannot help feeling indifferent to the happenings on screen. In an attempt to incorporate multiple issues in the film’s story, the film’s writers land up meaninglessly infusing story angles like social situation of the North East India, the divide between Indian and classical music, relationship struggles between father-daughter, husband-wife and even a stalker and his target. The film’s dialogues are very average with no outstanding one liners.
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