By: Amit kumaR Agarwal
A great trailer and taking a blockbuster opening doesn't necessarily mean that the film will connect with the audiences; it simply means that the first film connected so well that the legacy continues.
Stree worked because the concept was novel, the script injected humor very well, the vulnerability of the male protagonist connected with the audiences and the horror-romcom genre mixed potently. These very things go against Stree 2, as the screenplay seems to be merely a cut-paste job of the previous film.
The film opens with Stree returning from the town because she sees her statue with the line "Protect Us"; however as she leaves, a new force is unleashed, a headless man, slayer of Stree. Unlike Stree, he abducts women.
It is up to the protagonists played by Pankaj, Rajkumar, Aparshakti and Abhishek to free the town of the curse with the help of Shraddha.
The biggest problem of the film is that the entire film is made on the same template of screenplay with which Stree was written - even the scenes are the same. It gives a feeling of déjà vu.
While in Stree the entire audience was laughing, here it was only a handful of audiences.
After the cult Stree and Bala, director Amar Kaushik made a below-average fare, Bhediya, if Stree 2 was a stand-alone film, it would have performed below-average as well; but the franchise value got it a blockbuster opening.
If you are looking at a Stree kind of a high, you will be hugely disappointed, majorly because of the script. Since Stree, Bhediya, Munjya and now probably a vampire in Bhediya 2, is a horror universe now - it is time Amar Kaushik gets the scripts right, else it takes just a film or two for the entire universe to fizzle out.