Warning: Slight spoilers ahead (does it matter?)
So, I watched Dhoom 2 today, and I was bored!
I went to enjoy myself, but I am still yet to understand why I did not find the movie interesting. Opinions will surely differ from mine, and I had loved 'Dhoom', unlike many others, because it came off as an entertaining movie with loads of gloss, speed, good music and crackling funny and taut dialogues.
And Dhoom2 takes it further...it is glossier, slicker, has better dances, and loads and loads of action, and one sizzling hot Hrithik Roshan. Well, yeah, John Abraham was hot too, and his hotness quotient was heightened by a strategically placed tatoo (as pointed out by one of my friends), but Hrithik - well, um...mmmm...yep, delicious. There's just one problem, he looks too honest to be a schemer and a thief. So, they make his character emotional, make him fall in love with the first bimbo who dotes on him, and make him give up being a thief for love, make him look more like an artist, and in general make him a lot less criminal.
And that spoils it for me. I am all for criminals/villains being handsome, hot, good dancers, sleek talkers, et al. But, to make a villain less villainous in a movie of police and robbers, takes away the edge from the whole experience. The conflicts are always more enjoyable between opposing elements, not between good, and slightly good. This is a action movie with razor sharp dialogues, not a psychological deep drama, so it should not try to be deep and pretend to highlight humane nature of criminals.
Which also brings me to Abhishek, as his is the character which should give Hrithik's character a solid fight. However, unlike in the first Dhoom, here Jai Dixit (Abhishek's character) is more relaxed, and has his own set of Hawaiian shirts, bead braceletes and white shoes. He is still sharp, hard nosed and dedicated, but, he is not projected as boring any more - he is cool, suave (somewhat like his many other roles nowadays) and charming. Honestly, I love a charming Abhishek any time, but, when (1) We have a super cool, sizzling hot Hrithik around, let's keep the adversary boring and deadpan, it helps to retain some charm of Abhishek, so that we can always say later - 'Oh yeah, they were together in that movie and Hrithik did look hotter than him, but you know, he was not projectted
that way in the movie, so we cannot judge and conclude that Abhishek is not as hot as Hrithik'
(2) Abhishek had already been the same cool, suave and charming, with a sense of humour in at least six movies between the last Dhoom and this one, it would have been something 'different' to see him as boring and deadpan.
So, bring me back the dark-brown-jacket clad Abhishek, who has no charm, and just one borrowed pink shirt, but efficient and dead-on when he moves.
In short, keep the emotions low, the conflict high, and the sequences taut and racy and not mushy. And ok, you can throw in heroines with barely-there clothes for the guys.
Which brings me to Ash - her clothes or lack of them, her tan, her highlighted golden hair, her put-on attitude and her silver-white eye shadow (or was it the concealer - damn, I can never get these right). Also, her lips quivering when she is 'torn' between duty and emotions, her lip-lock with Hrithik and her much-publicised bikini. Sorry, there was no bikini-clad Ash, but then, the clothes she wore, or did not wear, were slightly covered off shoots of the bikini. Ah yeah, Ms. Rai did reveal to us much more of her anatomy than she had ever done,with highlighted cleavage and also tried tapori-MTV-american-accented language, but if hot meant anorexic bodies in tiny bits of clothes, then my opinion about men and what they find hot, has now touched the pits. I know this is unkind, and people might put this down to one more 'Ash-bashing', but in my opinion, she is in Dhoom2 just for the shock value. It is actually not her fault, she does her best, but what the role needed was a heroine who would look sexy kicking ass, a-la-Shilpa Shetty in Dus, but they took Ash and made her into a heroine who is delicate and mushy.
As a jealous rant - I am still thinking what made Hrithik's character fall in love with her - the fact that she preferred burgers over salads, the fact that she asked him to make her his partner ('take me', she hisses), the fact that she can play pretty good basketball compared to other girls (as per his statement) or the fact that she mouths inane dialogues about trust and all that crap (yeah, the dialogue here is crap).
All right, so what did I like, after all my complaints? The answer, surprisingly, is Uday Chopra with his Nagpada principles, his english and his dreams. Everytime, he is there, he gives me something to chuckle over. And teaming up with Bipasha's twin sister, they provide some scenes for me to look forward to.
Ah well, Bipasha...well, she is fine, in both roles, in the denims as well as in the bikini, probably hot, and much more natural than Ash. In fact, she is delightful as the bumbling, silly, yet hot twin sister.
The second thing that I liked were song picturisation and choreography, though not the songs themselves as much as I liked the songs of Dhoom.
The colours, scenes, stunts were good, in fact, very good. But the chase sequences were too lengthy.
Lastly, I have now realized why I had also not liked 'Phir Hera Pheri' but had liked 'Krrish' and 'Lage Raho Munnabhai'. The common thread here is - story. Both Krrish and LRM had a story, different from their first part. In fact, different or not, they had a story. In case of D2 and also PHP, the story was non-existent. Agreed, even Dhoom 1 did not have a story, but it did not matter then. It matters now, because the pattern geting repeated brings in boredom. And no amount of Hrithik's rippling muscles and rubbery dance moves than cover that. At least, not for me.
For those whom the above complains don't matter and Hrithik and Ash are all the pull that matters, speed on with Dhoom2! Who knows, I might just see it a second time, if no other movies come up, and might just enjoy it, as I now know what to expect!
