Vishwaroopam 2 - Movie Review
Film: Vishwaroopam 2
Cast: Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah, Shekhar Kapur, Jaideep Ahlawat, Russell Geoffrey Banks, Waheeda Rehman, Deepak Jethi, Anant Mahadevan and others
Dialogues: Shashank Vennelakanti
Music: Ghibran
Lyrics: Ramajogaiah Sastry
Cinematography: Sanu Varghese, Shamdat Sainudeen
Editing: Mahesh Narayan, Vijay Shankar
Stunts: Stefan Richter, Parvez Feroz, T Ramesh
Sound Designer: Kunal Rajan
Producer: Kamal Haasan, S Chandra Haasan
Written and directed by: Kamal Haasan
CBFC Rating: UA
Release date: August 10, 2018
Running time: 145 minutes
Kamal Haasan directed ‘Vishwaroopam 2’ is sequel to 2013 ‘Vishwaroopam’. Kamal Haasan has said that the film is both prequel and sequel at times. Kamal Haasan is seen here in same role as RAW Agent Wisam, who is a Muslim.
The film begins where the first part (Vishwaroopam) ended. It resumes with RAW agent Wisam travelling to London with his wife Nirupama (Pooja Kumar), his squad member Asmitha (Andrea), his boss (Sekhar Kapoor) are heading to UK to dispose off British agent’s body. They are welcomed in UK by Goswamy aka Go Daddy. Their car is attacked and the bruised Wisam remembers past events and we get to see the backstory of Asmitha how she got trained under him at military training center in Chennai and why he was expelled from military for failing both as ‘officer and a gentleman’.
The story moves back to the events that happened in the original movie and comes to series of events in London and Delhi bomb threats. Al-Qaeda terrorist Omar Qureshi (Rahul Bose) who is in India plotting to take revenge appears on the screen again. The rest of the movie is how Wisam puts an end to Omar’s terrorist activities.
This second part begins on interesting note and runs in engaging manner for few minutes but it goes downhill thereafter. Kamal Haasan, the writer and director of the movie, seems to have run out of ideas for this sequel. Wisam’s journey is clueless here. What is aim? To nab terrorist, or do some stunts or showing off that two girls are smitten by him?
The first part not only had some gripping moments, it also showcased terrific action stunts. Here it fails on both counts. The action stunts are hardly convincing. Kamal Haasan looks too old to do them. Also Asmitha (Andrea) constantly teasing Kamal and taunting his wife (Pooja) is too irritating.
The Telugu dialogues are also not proper; they are hard to understand at times. There are some interesting moments though like Kamal exposing the mole in RAW and his mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s failing to recognize the son. Kamal’s old-dancing photos are effectively used here.
Kamal Haasan as Wisam is just okay. Pooja Kumar plays the role of wife convincingly, Waheeda Rehman as mother is touching. Andrea does some action stunts. Rahul Bose appears as weak and boring villain.
On technical front, cinematography is impressive. Editing is clumsy. Music is not effective.
Bottom-line: This sequel is choppy and clumsy. With incoherent script, uneven narration, ‘Vishwaroopam 2’ falls flat. It is more like the leftover scenes from the first part were stitched together to make this. It turns out to be a dull sequel.