Cocktail 2 Movie Review & Rating: Shahid Kapoor shines as film trades its gloss for melodrama

As befits a 2026 rom com, we get couples living-in quite comfortably, without anyone — families or friends — morally judging Kunal or Diya, though neither of them are strictly averse to matrimony as we discover later in the film. Everyone is wealthy enough to go roaming about the world, whistling up fancy convertibles, and vineyard tours: no poor people in this film.

The conflict comes up only when a gorgeous fly-in-the-ointment shows up, which seems to be the only instrument Bollywood filmmakers have to muddy the waters: in that respect, nothing seems to have changed in the interval. Can two people fall out of love? That would demand too much complexity, and what would happen to that gold standard Bollywood, ‘dekh tere liye do ladkiyaan lad rahin hain’. Perish the thought.

The same director, Homi Adajania, helms both films, but this one is written by Luv Ranjan; the older one had Imtiaz Ali as the writer. What I wanted to see was whether the 2026 guy has progressed from being any better than the compulsive flirtatious jerk played by Saif Ali Khan, who was more in Luv Ranjan territory. Interestingly enough, it’s the Shahid Kapoor character who fits better with Imtiaz Ali’s idea of a romance: Kunal turns out to be a better guy than we give him credit for; when temptation arises, he turns all noble.

Cocktail 2 coasts on glossiness and too much talkiness, overlaid with Pritam’s ever-present background music. The reprise of the still-popular songs, including Tum hi ho bandhu, is flat: all emotions are underlined and overstated, just in case we missed the stuff going on between the three.

Kriti Sanon finds herself with more feelings than she wagered for; Rashmika Mandana’s very silly idea of testing-her-true-love leaves her, unsurprisingly, in a suspicious puddle: the former is glamorous in a leggy, sunburnt way; the latter flubs the Hindi accent, and is surprisingly dull.

Cocktail 2 Movie Trailer:

After the first half fully committed to the template of beautiful vistas-washboard abs-messy emotions, the film turns into a mix of my best friend’s wedding, and the beautiful bridesmaid, in which we get an array of lehengas and maangtikas, and other eye-catching ensembles. Post interval, all the hard-working breeziness turns into melodrama, with a ringing endorsement of love not as excitement but habit. Yes, sexiness is great, impulsivity is wonderful, but the ever-after is reserved for steadiness, and responsibility.

Ultimately Cocktail 2 comes off a bit of a cocktail itself, swinging between surface and depth. It is Shahid Kapoor who carries this film with a pleasing conviction I haven’t seen in a long time. And while I missed Deepika Padukone’s wild wounded-ness, Sanon isn’t half bad herself. But there’s no getting past the conservatism which comes wrapped in this pyaar ka punchnama: for all its modern vibe, it’s the guy who gets the last word, not the gals.

Cocktail 2 movie cast: Shahid Kapoor, Rashmika Mandana, Kriti Sanon, Pulkit Sharma, Tiku Talsania
Cocktail 2 movie director: Homi Adajania
Cocktail 2 movie rating: 2.5 rating