'Student of the Year 2' has all the trappings of a Karan Johar cliche

Johar's film universe is at least consistent in its glamour quotient and music that makes its way to Indian weddings

Seven years ago, Karan Johar’s Student of the Year (SOTY) was the launch pad for the careers of Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra. Now, Student of the Year 2, directed by Punit Malhotra and written by Arshad Sayed, hopes to propel the careers of Ananya Pandey and Tara Sutaria similarly. In a nutshell, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the other — and perhaps even future editions. But Johar takes 146 minutes to present another fanciful story of saccharine young love and school rivalry.

Rohan Sachdev (essayed by a chiselled Tiger Shroff) is a small-town boy who has been