Fourteen years after Deepika Padukone danced barefoot on our heartstrings as the chaotic, unforgettable Veronica, Homi Adajania returns to the bar with Cocktail 2 but ends up serving a lukewarm mocktail of ideas and aesthetics.

The narrative playground shifts from the rainy, moody streets of London to the sun-drenched, high-fashion cliffs of Sicily. Kunal (Shahid Kapoor) and Diya (Rashmika Mandanna), a live-in couple whose decade-long bond has survived a long-distance relationship and COVID-19, hit a gorgeous obstacle in the form of Ally (Kriti Sanon) during a vacation in Italy. Trying to separate habit from commitment, and responsibility from burden, Diya decides to test Kunal’s loyalty by asking Ally to seduce him.

The narrative twist here is that the women are the ones driving the confusion, and the boy gets into the mess with blinkers on. Diya’s deep-seated overthinking, spurred by a joke and Ally’s performative rebellion, fractures the relationship. However, after the initial burst of energy, the romantic comedy suffers from an identity crisis because the creative visions of director Homi Adajania and co-writer and co-producer Luv Ranjan speak to different demographics.

The concoction lacks the intoxicating emotional depth of the original and the sharp, unapologetic punch of a Ranjan comedy. Over the years, Adajania has built his reputation by giving complex, unconventional urban women a genuine voice and a judgment-free space. While Ranjan famously views modern romance through a deeply cynical, male-centric lens, where women often function as calculated puppet masters. Together, they create a mashup in which the female voice is muffled, and the boy remains cute and blemish-free.

Moreover, Sicily’s artsy surface feels like a travel influencer’s Instagram reels, and beneath it lies a manufactured plot structure in which the loyalty-test hook feels utterly artificial, stretching the love triangle beyond the screenplay’s intrinsic logic. In terms of idea, it belongs to a fast-paced, cynical comedy rather than to a soulful, relationship drama between flawed, urbane characters, which Adajania excels in. As the narrative drifts into shallow waters, the writers try to breathe life into it with emotionally charged words such as justjoo and sukoon, but the vocabulary feels unearned.

The only element that retains its verve is Pritam’s music, and songs such as Mashooqa and Jab Talak capture the vibe of an Adajania film much more than the screenplay does. In the original, the lines were sharply drawn by the clothes. Diana Penty wore traditional kurtas to signal purity and commitment, while Deepika wore short skirts to signal rebellion and emotional instability. Here, the makers seem to have evolved past this cliché; they ditch the obvious wardrobe visual cues. Rashmika is styled in chic and contemporary clothing, competing with Shahid and Kriti in the cleavage competition.

However, it turns out that this evolution is strictly costume-deep. Beneath the stylish wardrobe, which works like an advert for the upcoming wedding/honeymoon collection, the film forces her back into the same mould of a suffocating, insecure, and traditional woman. Moreover, Rashmika’s Hindi diction shatters the illusion of her character. She plays an affluent, urban girl, but her diction lacks the effortless, natural flow required for the role. Her eyes are expressive, but every time she raises the pitch, the high-society world that Adajania effortlessly builds falls apart.

Kriti’s performance makes you realise what Deepika brought to the franchise when she stood under the strobe lights of a London nightclub and looked into the camera. She went on to give voice to a generation’s loneliness when Kavita Seth sang ‘Main hoon hi nahin is duniya ki’  for her. Veronica belonged to a rare breed of modern tragic heroines — unapologetically messy, fiercely loyal, and deeply broken. Kriti possesses Deepika’s physicality, but her performance as Ally lacks the erratic, magnetic storm that made Veronica unforgettable. Kriti hits her emotional cues perfectly, but you can see the effort behind the character which feels like a safe version of a wild cat— neat and controlled.

Shahid faces no friction stepping into Saif Ali Khan’s effortlessly charming shoes, retreating to his chocolate boy persona that still works. He brings a warm, reliable stability to a character who actually wants to anchor down.

In a pivotal scene, Kunal tries to explain true love by comparing it to an old, messy cupboard. He argues that even though it looks chaotic from the outside, you still know exactly where every single item is hidden. It is a warm, poetic idea meant to celebrate the beauty of long-term relationships, and Shahid makes it work. But the tragedy of Cocktail 2 is that it treats its audience exactly the same way. It is a messy cupboard of a movie, but instead of feeling comforting, it just feels exhaustingly predictable. There is nothing much to look at inside!

Cocktail 2 is currently running in theatres.