Directed by : Anees Bazmee

Mere ghar ka toh phone na tring tring nahi karta, conjuring conjuring karta hai.

Kartik Aaryan, Kiara Advani and Tabu in stills from 'Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2'

Spoilers ahead... 


Two strangers, Reet Rathore (Kiara Advani) and Ruhaan Randhawa (Kartik Aaryan) meet at a bus stop, they visit a music festival and become so friendly that Reet asks for a favor from Ruhaan to come along to her hometown in Rajasthan while she pretends to be dead to her family so that her fiance gets married to her sister. The only issue is they decide to hide in that very abandoned mansion that was shut down 18 years ago with the spirit of Manjulika trapped inside a room. 

Watching the movie I was wondering if forced humor is the new norm and do today's youth enjoy this in name of entertainment? What happened to the genuine laughs we would get over films a decade or so ago. The original directed by Priyadarshan and starring Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan was miles better than this. 

Anees Bazmee films have in past worked for me, even that guilty pleasure movie 'Mubarakan'. But here, I kept searching for the moments when I would really say 'Oh yea, this was a very good punchline'. There are so many un-necessary parts that if edited out would atleast had made for a shorter movie even if it wouldn't still have made any difference to the poor humor thanks to the writing team. For instance, both the tracks involving Reet and Ruhaan, firstly does nothing to narrative, and secondly they were so average to listen to. Then that entire 'RoohBaba' angle was not required, complete waste of time it was.

There's Bade Pandit (Sanjay Mishra) who keeps using yester year movies songs/dialogues to talk while having an hearing issue. Normally, Sanjay Mishra would be very reliable but here even he felt so irritable, very few scenes worked like the one where he asks Manjulika to translate in hindi as his bengali is as poor as french. Both Rajesh Sharma and Govind Namdeo are under utilised. Ashwini Kalsekar was good, and the Rajpal Yadav 'Big Boss' dialogue was hilarious. 

The best part of the movie was Tabu, in the double role she was so good. There's a scene where she kills her dad, the way she behaves there slightly reminded of 'AndhaDhun'. The flashback scene telling the story of Manjulika, the entire black magic and then the twist at the end was very well done. 

Kartik Aaryan's comic timing is pretty good which is a reason he was able to get some laughs out of silly moments or poor writing too. I also liked his dance over the male version of 'Ami je tomar'. While Kiara did really nothing except being a glamour element, and I was really happy that they didn't go the route of Manjulika possessing her body because that prank scene where she mimicked Manjulika was extremely poor acting. 

In the end, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 falls way short when compared to Akshay's movie in 2007, is it watchable for Tabu's performance alone ? Not really. 

My Rating : 4.5/10