Limber thrusts and a mediocre story is the best summation of ABCD2’s after-feeling. The film’s title that is the acronym for Anybody Can Dance uses the chronicled template of the Step Up franchise, remaining close to the guidelines jotted in their holy rule-book. As the staple goes, a bunch of apparent losers, ridiculed for cheating, take up the challenge of competing in the world hip-hop championship and walk us through their patriotism soaked journey of redemption. No kidding, at some point during the film’s climax, we almost cheered – Chak De India! As eerie as it sounds, ABCD 2 seems like a dance-tribute to Shah Rukh Khan’s hockey saga, and it lamentably does a hopelessly shoddy job at it.
Going chronologically, the film begins on a Shimit Amin note, nosedives headlong into the Step Up theme, pulls off a Dil Toh Pagal Hai mid-way and ends with a dance-piece that is the film’s best shot at absolution. What is infuriating, is that it wastes 154 minutes of your life in serving a rather insipid concoction of gorgeously orchestrated dances, an unexplored romance and oodles of unnecessary melodrama.