janasorl

Forget that Superman acts like a sulky teenager. Forget that most of the cast has had every ounce of charisma drained out of them. Forget even that half the CGI looks ripped from the 90s. The real crime here is the camera work. It jitters, jerks, and swoops like it was choreographed by someone who thinks motion sickness is a genre. Is this supposed to appeal to TikTok-brained viewers who can't focus for more than five seconds? Whatever the excuse, it's not just distracting, it's wrecking the whole movie.

"Son of Sardaar 2" is what happens when a franchise loses the plot - literally and spiritually. While the original flirted with absurdity under the guise of action-comedy, this sequel takes a nosedive into grotesque horror, splatter, and cringe-inducing attempts at being edgy.

Let's clarify something up front: Sardaar, once a title of pride, has been rebranded here - twisted into Belial, a demonic figure dragged up from the depths of religious apocrypha. The film makes no effort to hide that its main character, the so-called Son of Belial, is essentially the spawn of a devil, now rampaging through India with little more than a bloodlust and a handful of terrible one-liners.

The plot - if you can call it that - is a stitched-up mess. The Son of Belial is on the run after committing a series of grotesque, ritualistic murders that are shown in excessive, almost fetishistic detail. Limbs fly, heads roll, and somewhere in the background, a CGI cow explodes. It's hard to say whether the film is trying to be a horror, a parody, or just an endurance test for your gag reflex.

Any attempt at social commentary is drowned in bad pacing and worse dialogue. Characters scream, overact, and frequently vanish for no reason. Musical numbers are jammed between murder scenes like someone hit shuffle on a cursed playlist. The editing is so chaotic it feels like each scene was directed by a different demon.

Visually, it's gaudy, saturated, and full of cheap digital effects that wouldn't pass in a PS2 game. Sound design is loud for the sake of being loud - like the movie is trying to scream over your inner voice begging you to turn it off.

If there's one thing "Son of Sardaar 2" proves, it's that not every story needs a sequel - especially not one about the devil's idiot son carving his way through India with no purpose, no charm, and no soul. It's a cinematic catastrophe that thinks shock value can replace storytelling.

"Raid 2" attempts to pick up the ashes of its already dusty predecessor and fling them directly into the audience's eyes. Set in 1989 Rajasthan - or perhaps a student theater production of Rajasthan - the film opens with Officer Patnaik, played by an actor who clearly lost a bet, storming a palace with the charisma of a tax audit. The raid fails instantly, mostly because Patnaik forgets why he's there and spends the rest of the scene whispering about "justice" while accidentally raiding the palace's gift shop.

Following this "immense failure" (as the film's narrator calls it, over the sound of someone weeping in the editing booth), Patnaik abandons law enforcement and, in a jarring tonal shift, becomes a brony. Yes, that kind of brony. He moves into his mother's basement (despite the film never showing a house above it), where he spends his days in a haze of shameful porn, My Little Pony reruns, and whisper-crying into Rainbow Dash pillows.

Somewhere in this emotional junkyard of a plot, he befriends a seagull - a fully CGI monstrosity with the voice of an exhausted call center worker - who visits daily to eat sardines and judge Patnaik's life choices. The seagull, named "Justice" (because of course), is actually the most consistent and believable character in the film.

The rest of Raid 2 is a confusing blur of musical montages about nothing, budget fight scenes choreographed by interns, and a voiceover that openly apologizes midway through: "We didn't think you'd make it this far."

By the time the credits roll - in Comic Sans, no less - the only raid you'll be thinking about is the one you want to launch on the director's house for wasting two hours of your life.