Spies, by default, are meant to be the most innocuous, even insidious, presence in a room. They need to blend in, careful to not let any eyes linger on them or guess their intent and movement. But when super agent Kabir walks into any room — or for that matter, any space — men, women, children, canines, felines, amphibians, invertebrates and what have you — can’t take their eyes off him. In that sense, Kabir is the antithesis of a secret agent, a test, that in theory he should have flunked at entry level. But then, Kabir is played by Hrithik Roshan. Greek ‘gawk’ is his middle name.

We first met Kabir in a different world. A world that was not only far removed from the one he is presently in, but also for us. It was October 2019, War had hit theatres worldwide and become a blockbuster, but we had no idea that the pandemic was afoot. War — with Roshan’s trademark rakish charm, disarming good looks and captivating litheness — gave us a spy film which had action and attitude, soul and spectacle. It was with this film that Yash Raj Films spurred its retrospectively-created spy universe, whose roots actually lay in the 2012 film Ek Tha Tiger.

Since War, we have had Pathaan (with Shah Rukh Khan) and Tiger 3 (with Salman Khan), with Kabir popping up at the end of the latter to connect the YRF Spy multiverse. War 2 hits the ground running. It needs to, clocking as it does a posterior-numbing 179 minutes. We find Kabir — a bit more tanned than one would expect, but then the man travels the world — in Japan where he takes on a Samurai cartel in the middle of a sumptuous feast with some sumptuous swordplay. Even a bloodthirsty hound yelps like a puppy at his toes. Kabir, as mentioned earlier, has everyone at ‘hello’.

There is Kiara Advani’s “soldier” Kavya who falls for him and proposes with a ring fashioned out of melted bullets (go better that, Ronaldo!) because Kabir is a “warrior”. Like it was with Khalid (Tiger Shroff) in War, there is more than a hint of a bromance between Kabir and Vikram (NTR), who have a shared history (when Kabir was Kabboo and Vikram was Raghu), but now operate on opposite sides of the moral spectrum.

It is the blurred boundaries of this darkness — the number of times the word ‘andhera’ is mentioned would make you think War 2 was paid for cross-promoting the just-released Amazon Prime Video series Andhera — and the shifting moral compass of its principal players that the film seeks to focus on. Some of the emotional beats hit the right chords, the action set pieces will make jaw meet floor quite a few times, and the locations — Spain to Germany, Dubai to Switzerland — are spectacular. But for all its globetrotting DNA — though Benjamin Jasper’s camera gives us some stunning frames — there is little in War 2 that hits home.

For starters, there is nothing in War 2 that carries the stamp of Ayan Mukerji, who takes over the directorial reins from Siddharth Anand, who helmed War. Mukerji, best known for his intimate relationship stories like Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, had larger-than-life storytelling spectacle added to his CV with Brahmastra: Part One. But while that film did hit some high notes with its emotional quotient, his latest offering largely remains soulless.

War 2, however, leaves no stone unturned — or location untouched — when it comes to its extremely well-choreographed action pieces. Players spar inside planes, atop trains, inside glaciers and in boats that fly more than they float. But while the action is top-notch, the VFX feels locally sourced and not in keeping with a film of this budget (whispers scream loud that it is in the region of a not-so-modest ₹400-crore).

Also coming up short are the film’s unwieldy dialogues, with Aditya Chopra’s trusted Pathaan men Sridhar Raghavan (screenplay) and Abbas Tyrewala (dialogues) delivering lines so clunky that they have no place in what is supposed to be a slick actioner. Both “India first” and “Service before self” — that sound more like NGO taglines — pop up like a bad penny every five minutes.

Unlike the other films in the Spy Universe, War 2 — scored by Pritam — has weak music, with Sanchit and Ankit Balhara’s background beats throwing up ludicrous lines like: ‘Put in that grave/ no escape/ you know you gonna die.’

While the sparring, both physical and verbal, between Hrithik (all ease and charm) and NTR (all smooth and intense) is intriguing, it becomes tedious after a point, as does the convoluted plot that aims high but delivers little. Too much footage is spent on establishing a childhood connection between the film’s lead players, eating into both patience and time.

Conversely, Kiara is reduced to functioning as a clotheshorse, though she does get more space than Vaani Kapoor did in War. But with Kiara’s bikini scene in the film being snipped by nine seconds by the censor board, her screen time becomes even lesser.

In a Skyfall move, Anil Kapoor steps into the Spy Universe as the desi embodiment of M. The much-talked-about post-credits scene — featuring Bobby Deol (no surprises there!) segues into Alpha, the December instalment to the Spy Universe that will be headlined by Alia Bhatt. It is pretty unremarkable.

Very early on in War 2, Kabir is described as “the man who doesn’t miss”. Hrithik comes up trumps, but we wish we could say the same for War 2.

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