Most hyped releases for the year will naturally feature in any and every shortlist for the most anticipated films.

On that note was Rohit Shetty's Singham Again (2024), starring ensemble teams of pantheon Hindi A-listing actors with, in part, a concept based off the Ramayana-an epic it purported to weave within it’s storyline.

In reality, grandeur has gone along with fruitlessness. The reference of Indian mythology appears half-hearted, a mere afterthought rather than integral to the narrative, committed without thought simply to evoke grandeur.

Ultimately, it proves to be a disastrous squandering of creative and intellectual capital because it neither engages with the mythology intelligently nor uplifts the drama.

Fuss About The Cop Universe

The term ‘universe’ has been borrowed from Hollywood’s Marvel franchise, but Singham Again falls short in every sense.

Marvel’s success lies not just in the fantasy elements but in strong screenplays and unique, well-defined characters with special powers, each serving a specific purpose within the story.

In contrast, Shetty's film brings together a team of cops whose roles feel interchangeable, performing nearly identical stunts.

Deepika Padukone as DCP Shakti Shetty is introduced more as a strategic device to pave the way for her inclusion in another film, provided her character resonates with the audience in this one.

Similarly, Tiger Shroff as ACP Satya Bali, based on Lakshman, also feels underdeveloped and lacks a significant impact.

However, when it comes to Ranveer Singh as Simmba, modeled after Hanuman, he at least connects up with the story and temporarily does away with the tedium of the boredom factor because of his comic timing.

When all these characters come together for one last showdown—Akshay Kumar as Sooryavanshi making a grande entrance on a helicopter-like Garuda—the film again tries to bring in Marvel like feel. But unfortunately, the film completely misses the mark. Thus, the very idea of a 'universe' in the movie ends up being shoddy.

A Flawed Legacy

Shetty started his career of films with a police officer as the protagonist with Singham (2011), which happened to be a remake of a Tamil film.

Then comes Singham Returns (2014), which was also a remake of a Malayalam film Ekalavyan, and Simmba (2018), a remake of the Telugu film Temper.

Shetty and his team mostly worked on films that were already successful in their native language and came with a readymade blueprint. Furthermore, films made in South India pay equal attention to a strong storyline and adrenaline-pumping action sequences, thus making them ideal material for adaptation into Hindi cinema.

Sooryavanshi, written by Yunus Sajawal, starts off promising enough. Yet, it stumbles when characters from Shetty's previous films are forcefully inserted into the narrative, making the attempts to capitalize on the franchise all too obvious.

Even worse, except for Singham, none of them could leave an indelible impression with the audience. Thus, Singham Again should have focused more on its storyline rather than relying solely on action sequences and loud background scores.

A Shallow Franchise

Singham Again highlights that one of the biggest ills of mainstream filmmaking in India when it focuses on spectacle while the script is ignored. It's an anathema to the ticket buying audience's intelligence quotient.

The question indeed is: do we really want a "cop universe"?

A scheme of interconnected storylines with recurring characters can be exciting in a movie if it is balanced with good storytelling and well-developed characters. Otherwise, this concept sounds more like an easy way to cash in on viewer nostalgia.

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