Judwaa 2 review: Silly gets sillier in this absurd comedy

Judwaa 2 does not hit the mark because it is an absurd comedy but since its humour is terribly lame.

Twenty years back you still needed to keep your brains at home (whatever that means) if you had to 'enjoy' Salman Khan's Judwaa. But hey, we are talking of David Dhawan movies, and its audiences then know exactly what to expect.
Maybe we lived in simpler times when films did not need 'political correctness'. Remember, it was the era we laughed at the corny jokes and vulgar hip-thrusts of Govinda. We reacted more like a bunch of kids to the inanity of mainstream Bollywood.
Times have changed but David Dhawan hasn't. He continues to assume the audience to be a bunch of five-year-olds. Maybe he is right: the tiny tots in the theatres were shrieking in delight. So were many adults. After all, who are we to set the benchmark in entertainment? Who are we to say what to laugh at and not to?
But there is something we can definitely say: That Judwaa 2 has pretty lame humour. I don't get what is funny about a lady singing Sa, Re, Ga, Ma... Amitabh Bachchan (in place of 'Pa').
I don't see anything remotely funny, even in a brazenly absurd comedy, why women must be referred to as 'items.' No Sir Dhawan, since your audience is the five-year-olds, you need to be a trifle more careful.
In short, Judwaa 2, the unneeded retelling of the Salman Khan original, faithfully follows the original template but is sufficiently improvised. Many 'original scenes' have been retained but the central characters and the plastic 'she-dolls' have not evolved a wee bit.
As Prem and Raj, the conjoined twins separated at birth and living in two milieus, it must be said that Varun Dhawan gives all it takes. He plays it cool and even succeeds in giving a bit of 'character' to both roles. So is Varun better than Salman Khan? It is a trick question because such films and characters cannot be measured with objectivity: Liking Judwaa or Judwaa 2 is directly proportional to your affinity for the 'stars.'
Set in London, with Prem, Raj and their identities leading to a very forced 'comedy of errors,' Judwaa 2 has lame villains making it even less engaging that the original. (I don't remember particularly liking Judwaa 20 years ago but to give Judwaa 2 a fair chance, I watched the original again, and after Anu Malik's crooning of East or West becoming an irritating earworm, decided to give it a skip.)
For a film that does not attempt to use the 'absurdity' it has in its hands to create something even distantly interesting, Judwaa 2 ends up as an entertainment aberration of our time.
But there is a takeaway: It takes a certain kind of skill for female actors to do such films. Jacqueline Fernandez, redoing her 'I am so silly' act, last seen in A Gentleman, proves that she is cut out for such roles while poor Taapsee Pannu, a far, far better actress, struggles and withers. Oh yes, we also have Anupam Kher making the same faces he used to do in the name of comedy 20 years later.
Judwaa 2 is mindless fare but at least if the makers had given it a bit more mind, it wouldn't have been so redundant to our times.
Judwaa 2
Starring: Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Taapsee Pannu
Directed by David Dhawan
Now playing at theatres in the UAE
Rating: 1.5/5

• UAE