‘Raaz Reboot’ movie review: This disappointing ‘raaz’ is way too predictable

Directed by: Vikram Bhatt
Produced by: Mukesh Bhatt, Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Gaurav Arora, Kriti Kharbanda
Duration: 2 hours and 07 minutes
Bollywood Bubble Rating: 1.5/5

It’s been 14 years, and Bollywood’s popular horror film series ‘Raaz’ comes up with its fourth instalment titled ‘Raaz Reboot’. Released today, it looks at the successful team up of actor Emraan Hashmi and director Vikram Bhatt with some exotic locales of Romania and melodious music. Generating quite a good amount of curiosity with these factors, B-Town’s serial kisser Emraan has even claimed that this latest offering is the scariest of all the previous films in the series. So will this ‘Raaz’ be able to hide its secrets while managing to frighten the viewers? The answer is a big NO!

The plot begins with married couple Rehaan and Shaina arriving in Romania with the former hiding a Raaz from the latter. While settling down, Shaina senses some weird instincts and soon gets possessed by an evil spirit. After realising what Shaina is going through, Rehaan sets out to free her. But he is not alone, Aditya, Shaina’s ex-lover also plays a key role as he makes an entry back in their lives. The fight between good and evil begins with a question of who will win and at what cost. Will Shaina be free from the clutches of this ghost? What revenge this evil wants from Shaina? Will Rehaan be able to save his love? What are Aditya’s intentions behind helping Shaina? All answers lie in this highly painful dud titled ‘Raaz Reboot’.

Talking about performances, Emraan Hashmi is a good performer. He delivers a decent performance with his character Aditya who also carries grey shades. But somewhat this film could have been easily missed by a performer like Emraan. But he turns out to be the only saving grace of this film. Gaurav Arora as Rehaan shows some sign of maturity from his debut performance in ‘Love Games’, but the loose script doesn’t allow him to express much and perform, in the end falling complete flat. Debutant Kriti Kharbanda as Shaina is strictly okay. Some of her scenes are fine but the rest definitely checks the level of patience. The supporting cast Ashwath Bhatt and Suzanna Mukherjee would wonder why they agreed to do a film like this. Though overall, looking at their screen time they did a decent job.

‘Raaz Reboot’ is written by Vikram Bhatt and Girish Dhamija (dialogues). The movie sees a very poor writing with highly predictable twist and turns. Even the ardent fans of Vikram Bhatt could easily know that he has picked up so much of the scenes and plot from his previous horror movies like ‘1920’ and ‘1920 London’. Talking about his direction, again there’s nothing new in the treatment which makes this movie the weakest film in the series.

Technically, Romania is beautifully captured by cinematographer Manoj Soni. His camera work and the handling of lights in the climax is done well. Editor Kuldip Mehan’s work is noteworthy, but he could have shortened the length of the first half.

The music of the film is composed by Jeet Gannguli along with the duo of Sangeet – Siddharth Haldipur. Being an important aspect in the series, this time also the makers have not failed in their selection of tunes having a good ear for music. Every track is quite good and hummable. Visually, ‘Lo Maan Liya’ and ‘Yaad Hai Na’ perfectly hold you with them. Background music by Raju Singh is not at all effective.

To wrap it up, ‘Raaz Reboot’ is a done to death formula which you won’t regret if you missed. If this is the last movie in the popular franchise of ‘Raaz’, it would be a sheer disappointment. Not at all worth, you may skip it.

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Naman Bhutra

Chief Editor – Bollywood Bubble. Sometimes It’s better to Start Speaking up rather then Remain Silent.

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