Rating: Director: Punit Malhotra Cast: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Panday, Aditya Seal, Sameer Soni and others. 'Student Of The Year 2' (SOTY 2), a sequel to 2012 film of the same name, is yet another launchpad for two newbies in Bollywood. While this new installment in the franchise has no connection with the previous film, it introduces two pretty ladies Tara Sutaria and Ananya Panday to the audience as Tiger Shroff does the most heavy-lifting (literally). These types of movies should be 'light', enjoyable and cleverly produced no-brainers, but even at this SOTY 2 disappoints big time. The high school drama promises all the glitters and glosses with candy floss romance but fails to mark in the most important aspect - script. The film is set in Dharma Productions' quintessential dreamland masqueraded as the school. The school shown here is Saint Teresa's High School in Dehradun. Rohan (Tiger), a high school student with supermodel physique, enters Saint Teresa with a sports scholarship in pursuit of his childhood love Mia (Tara), who aspires to make it big in life. Shreya (Ananya), a rich eccentric girl, creates nuisance in Rohan's life because..well, she is rich. In an unexpected turn of events, Rohan is kicked out of the college but a love triangle forms between the three. Meanwhile, the college competes with other contemporaries for the Annual Inter-College Dignity Cup. Manav (Aditya Seal), the most sought-after boy in the college, challenges Rohan to fight for the most prized possession, the Student of the Year trophy. Who will finally win this prestigious trophy? A still from the film. SOTY 2 is an impossible blend of attractive, athletic teens who learn their own lessons in acceptance and find a way to succeed amidst high school politics. The film is nowhere near funny enough to succeed as a comedy, nor serious enough to work as a drama. Punit Malhotra's direction proves incapable of striking even a faint comedic spark. There's no heartfelt bond between the generic main characters, no emotional drive or urgency or pithy observations about life and high school. This wanna-be romantic-comedy is hanging on to every cliché and tripping over every bad joke in the book. There are too many ridiculous situations and you might overload your brain with it looking for sense. There is no plot or character development, and all of these supposed high-school characters seem more like kindergartens. The sappy dialogues are bested by the childish, uninspired score that simply jumps in and out without any pretext or introduction. The film not only features bad actors, but it also has terrible lines and terribly stereotypical characters! This film portrays high school a place full of cliques which is also a stereotype! Though it tries to portray a good message, the amount of stereotypes in the film almost negates the message it's trying to send. Tara Sutaria in the still from SOTY 2. The acting is laughable, I mean, none of these pretty faces can actually act. They are just there so girls can swoon over the guys and boys can fantasise the girls. Tiger Shroff keep on changing his limited two shades of emotion. Debutante Ananya Panday and Tara Sutariya look confident but both lack the charm. Can't blame the actors, it's probably just the absolutely rubbish script. At the end, SOTY 2 is just a silly, formulaic film with stock characters who are just pretty to ogle. It's a bit crude, a lot illogical and you might have to be in a certain state of mind to enjoy a film this silly. Watch 'Student of the Year 2' trailer here:<doc-sep>Student of the Year 2 movie review: SOTY 2 stars Ananya Panday, Tiger Shroff and Tara Sutaria. Student of the Year 2 movie review: SOTY 2 stars Ananya Panday, Tiger Shroff and Tara Sutaria. After its prequel gave us actors like Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra, Student of the Year 2 will see another fresh batch entering Saint Teresa’s College. The Karan Johar production marks the acting debut of Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria. The film, also starring Tiger Shroff, has been directed by Punit Malhotra. While Ananya is actor Chunkey Panday’s daughter, we have seen Tara as a child artist in Disney India’s Big Bada Boom and sitcoms The Suite Life of Karan & Kabir and Oye Jassie. And giving company to these two girls is Tiger, who is working in a Dharma Productions’ film for the first time. Sharing his experience of working in Student of the Year 2, Tiger had said, “I am very glad that I got a chance to work on Student of Year 2. It has been a different world for me altogether. It is a very different character too. I am not Superman. You punch me and I bleed. It is not like I am indestructible. It was a great film to work on and I would like to thank Karan (Johar) sir and Punit (Malhotra) sir for holding my hand through every scene. I would say it was a breather. A light and fun experience.”<doc-sep>Karan Johar SOTY2 Tiger Shroff Tara Sutaria Aditya Seal Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani Varun Dhawan When you’ve signed up for the second edition of the airheaded franchise that revolves around’s interpretation of campus customs and couture, your expectations are in check. This one culminates in a sports film, which could be slotted as Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar meets Riverdale meets Dehradun Fashion Week. There’s just something winning about a man with modest means, forcing his privileged adversary to eat dust — the tested formulaleans on rather blatantly and excessively.The Archie Andrews with sixteen packs in this film is Rohan Sehgal (), a lovelorn student of Pishorilal Chamandas College in Mussoorie whose twinkle, Mridula () has moved to the elite St Theresa College in Dehradun. While he follows her like the pup from that telecom commercial, she’s now off petting. With the self-assigned name of Mia, she now has the hots for college champ Manav (channelling Deepak Tijori). Then there’s Manav’s sister, Shreya (Ananya Panday), who packs in every cliché associated with that ‘poor little rich girl’ — nasty like no other, calculatedly cunning, perennially aggro and yet, someone who overcompensates for her loneliness by pulling down her peers. She also shares that her dad calls her “manhoos” because her mother couldn’t survive her birth. Wouldn’t that qualify as TMI if not a line that regresses us back by a century?The film takes a turn when Rohan is rusticated from St Theresa’s for unruly behaviour and predictably, it happens to be Manav’s doing. Returning to his humble college, Rohan’s life finally has a mission that doesn’t involve one of the lead actresses — taking down Manav. Luckily, there’s just enough time to prep for the forthcoming Dignity Cup — an inter-collegiate sporting competition that also plays a decisive role in zero-ing in on the Student of the Year — a coveted trophy awarded to the best performer. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the film writes itself.A parkour pro who bolts like Usain with a body that could well assist anatomical studies, it’s shocking that Shroff hasn’t been put together in a laboratory. As an actor too, he has come a distance from the poker-faced lead in Heropanti. But director Punit Malhotra uses Shroff for his strengths — making him twirl on the dance floor and the basketball court too, ensuring his biceps bulge at the precise point when he’s about a land a jab and even getting him to nail the high kicks with precision. Of the two debutantes, Panday manages to infuse her Shreya with a tinge of humour, while Sutaria could be replaced by a cut-out with Velcro that Shroff could’ve hung from his biceps. Playing the bad boy from the good school, Seal is convincing even though his character is limiting. From the soundtrack, the remixed version ofseems to retain the mood and mayhem of the original but the rock version seems off-tempo and doesn’t cut it in the sequence it has been punched with.Helming the second in the franchise that catapulted the careers of Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra and, would surely come with great responsibility. But Malhotra plays it on the back-foot, hoping to crack it with a formulaic plot and clichéd characters that barely go beyond the call of duty. Perhaps, it’s time for the makers to return to film school?<doc-sep>
Student of the Year 2 Cast: Tiger Shroff, Ananya Panday, Tara Sutaria Director: Punit Malhotra When Karan Johar decided to direct Student of the Year, it was because after complicated love stories and a very ambitious My Name is Khan he wanted to direct a simple, youthful love story. Reprising the successful Kuch Kuch Hota Hai format (about young love) which catapulted him into the top league of Bollywood’s directors was a gamble that paid off well – Johar, playing to his strengths, landed a hit film once again besides flagging off the launch of a series of acting talent under Dharma banner. Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan have since gone on to become significant success stories in the movies and the rest is history. And history, as is famously quoted, often repeats itself. SOTY 2 directed by Punit Malhotra starring Tiger Shroff plus newbies Ananya Panday (Shreya) and Tara Sutaria (Mridula) follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, except that its story is more Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, only glossier and lighter with a few alterations. Rohan (Tiger Shroff), boy from the infra dig Pishorilal Chamandas College aspires to be in the elitist St Theresa College because his childhood sweetheart Mridula (Tara Sutaria) has moved on to a more posh school. As things turn out, he does manage to set foot in the elite campus, only to realise that he doesn’t belong in the rarefied world of the snooty Richie Richs. During this brief interlude, he meets Manav (Aditya Seal), the official Theresa star and his spoilt sister Shreya (Ananya Panday) and quickly enough the battlelines are clearly drawn. What follows thereafter is predictable stuff about poor kids versus rich kids and so on, minus the sparkling humour and cinematic genius that marked Mansoor Khan’s film of 1992, one of the rare youth films that had sports--a cycling race--at the heart of it all. SOTY 2, meanwhile has a bunch of sports activities with a kabaddi match as the ultimate deciding factor for the candidate who finally clinches the title of Student of the Year and takes home the trophy! For most part the story covers the major preoccupations of the young and the restless—romance, rivalry and then some more. Except that unlike the new-age slice-of-life delights like Pyaar Ka Punchnama that we have witnessed in recent times, SOTY settles for broad strokes rather than filling in defining details that could have taken the series a notch higher. Music in SOTY 2, unlike its predecessor that boasted of Disco deewane, Radha and Ishq wala Love, is surprisingly tepid. Except for the Yeh Jawani (the Vishal-Shekhar version) which instantly sets the screen afire, no other song displays major recall value. As for Will Smith’s appearance in a song as the ultimate casting coup, it would have worked better if he was around for a while longer. On the upside, the new kids on the block—Aditya Seal, Ananya Pandey and Tara Sutaria who team up with Tiger Shroff work heavily in favour of the film. While Shroff brings in his trademark action and dancing skills, Seal matches up as a worthy opponent and Sutaria as charming eye-candy. Sutaria who has been a child actor on several Disney shows can certainly expect to be signed up for a bunch of glamorous parts, what with a severe dearth of fresh and promising leading ladies in the younger slot. But the one who eventually steals the thunder is actor Chunky Panday’s daughter Ananya as the bratty Shreya with a winning side to her. As Shreya, Panday displays a certain spark and quite like Alia Bhatt, could well be the young talent to watch out for in days to come. About the report card on the film, the SOTY second edition, although it does not pass with flying colours, does make the grade. Rating: 2.5/5 Follow @News18Movies for more