KGF Chapter 2: High on mass entertainment quotient, low on rewatch value

KGF 2 was one of the most widely anticipated movies of the year, enjoying a Pan India release right after RRR. And it holds onto its mettle as delivered quite unexpectedly by the first installment.

KGF Chapter 2 takes off right where the first part ended with clever recalls knitted across the movie through acts and songs that can refresh the audience's memory and enthusiasm. One of the most critical aspects that stands out for the KGF franchise while it would have an ultimate death drop for other movies is the continual elevation of the protagonist through hell and heaven. But the Mad Max level production values with a pumping background score by Basrur make you believe that trance and accept Yash as the larger-than-life Rocky and root for him. The elevations only take an upward graph leaving no stone unturned to satisfy the masses. One of the most admirable aspects right off the bat is the significantly reduced romantic angle in the storytelling which helps a lot in maintaining the focus of the movie and the residual romance is laced necessarily into the storytelling experience.

The production values are quite brilliant with a scary resemblance to the Mad Max universe in terms of the backdrop and the social power tropes. Each member of the main cast contributes quite uniquely to the epic that unfolds eventually into a ballad.

Sanjay Dutt as Adheera looks quite menacing and the rest of the antagonists follow the standards they have already set in the first movie. While delivering a worshipping storyline, the movie does highlight a very few negative elements of the protagonist that grounds him to err as a human although they are almost immediately rectified when he rises again with electrifying background music.

However, on a critical note, for someone who is not smitten by the KGF fever, the movie can seem overly inclined in a direction of flow that can be irritatingly loud and shallow in terms of exploring the characters and binding them into the storyline. It is rather a group of people blanketed into the protagonist Rocky. While the make-believe magic does work well, any complexity to the antagonists in lieu of their visual grandeur would have made the story arcs more enjoyable and the movie, an independent title capable of its praise.

KGF Chapter 2 delivers on the mass entertainment quotient expected of it, but it could use some non-linear dynamics in the storyline because once the fever is down, the rewatch value is quite low.