There is a specific kind of sweat visible on the forehead of Annu Kapoor about twenty minutes into Dream Girl 2 that tells you almost everything you need to know about the current state of mainstream Hindi movies. He is working entirely too hard, shouting dialogue that was likely written as a medium-paced groan into something resembling a desperate auctioneer's pitch, and the sheer volume of his exertion sits heavily over the room long after the punchline has died. If I'm honest, it's a small thing that bugged me right from the jump, this relentless escalation of every single comic beat until nobody on screen seems to be having fun anymore. You can trace a direct line from the easy charm of the original 2019 sleeper hit to this bloated exercise in franchise preservation, though tracing that line mostly just makes you wonder why everyone involved decided to double down on the noise while shedding whatever tiny drops of genuine observational humor kept the first one afloat.

Director Raaj Shaandilyaa returns behind the camera with a screenplay that feels less like a narrative and more like a loose collection of WhatsApp forwards strung together by the sheer force of Ayushmann Khurrana’s willingness to shave his legs and put on a heavy-duty silk lehenga. The plot mechanics are thin enough to practically blow away in a gentle breeze, centering once again on Karam, who now has to impersonate a woman named Pooja not just over the telephone to pay off his mounting debts, but in person across various elaborate masquerades to appease a rotating gallery of eccentric, wealthy landlords and eccentric, wealthy suitors. The rhythm of the comedy rarely finds a groove, stumbling instead from one broad caricature to the next with the frantic energy of someone trying to outrun a bad review before it even gets typed out. There are scenes where characters simply stand in circular rooms shouting exposition at each other while the background score—a relentless, percussion-heavy beast—tells the audience exactly how to feel about a misunderstanding that was already obvious five minutes prior.

Ayushmann Khurrana remains an exceptionally gifted actor who somehow keeps finding new shades of exhaustion to play, yet even he looks stranded by the time the second half descends into an endless wedding farce involving Paresh Rawal and a revolving door of misidentified lovers. He slips into the falsetto voice with an ease that suggests muscle memory more than active craft, throwing himself into dance numbers and physical comedy gags that require him to contort his body into various painful-looking angles. His performance in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui had a certain bruised vulnerability that made the social messaging actually sting, but here he is reduced to a human prop in a dress, forced to react with wide-eyed shock to dialogue that sounds like it was generated by an algorithm trying to remember what a Bollywood comedy used to sound like in 1998. Ananya Panday, playing his love interest with the kind of permanent, glossy detachment usually reserved for perfume advertisements, shares approximately zero chemistry with him, largely because the script never gives them a single conversation that isn't about either money or marriage.

The cinematography by Jitin Stanislaus opts for a blindingly bright, high-key pastel aesthetic that makes every interior look like an upscale real estate brochure from Noida, stripping the working-class milieu of any actual texture or grit. You look at the framing and realize the filmmakers were terrified of shadows, lighting every corner with the flat, unforgiving intensity of a television game show, which drains the frantic farcical sequences of any visual rhythm they might have otherwise possessed. The background score by Meet Bros and Hitesh Sonik deserves special mention for its total lack of restraint, dropping jarring electronic stings into scenes of domestic argument with the subtlety of a falling anvil. It’s an editing choice that lingers just a fraction of a second too long on reaction shots, holding on Vijay Raaz or Abhishek Banerjee’s blank stares just long enough for the viewer to notice the boom mic shadow dancing across the top edge of the frame.

Beneath the messy cross-dressing gags and the endless barrage of double entendres, the film attempts to gesture toward some kind of modern commentary on male insecurity, financial desperation, and the rigid performance of gender roles in small-town India, but these themes keep getting buried under an avalanche of cheap homophobia and tired regional stereotypes. Every single male character in Mathura is apparently driven entirely by repressed urges or crushing debt, creating a closed ecosystem where human connection is reduced to financial transaction, yet the script treats this depressing reality with a breezy, sitcom indifference that never lets any actual stakes register. When compared to something like Chupke Chupke, where mistaken identity and verbal sparring were handled with a light, intoxicating touch that respected the intelligence of the viewer, this production feels like being trapped in a small elevator with three different people shouting jokes at you through megaphones.

There is a recurring visual gag involving a stray dog that wanders through several key scenes, barking at inappropriate moments and generally upstaging the human actors by virtue of being the only living creature on set not trying desperately to force a laugh, and honestly, that dog deserves a better agent. You leave the theater with a ringing in your ears and a profound sense of having watched a collection of talented performers run through a maze designed by committee, praying for an exit that takes way too long to appear.