A Middling Midpiece Of A Still-Enticing Franchise

A grand spectacle let down by some disjointed ideas, L2: Empuraan dazzles visually but lacks the intrigue and well-developed character arcs that worked wonders for Lucifer

- VIGNESH MADHU

T won't be an overstatement to call L2: Empuraan the most hyped Malayalam film ever. The primary reason is perhaps the excitement of witnessing Mohanlal unleashing his mass avatar once again after Lucifer (2019) under Prithviraj's astute direction. But beyond that, there was also a lot of intrigue around the character Khureshi Ab'raam, the magnitude of his dominance, his link with international crime cartels, the other key characters in his orbit, and their evolving motives. Come Empuraan, the film has all of that and more. The scale is several times bigger and so should have been the stakes. But Khureshi-Ab'raam (KA) is established as so powerful that no obstacle ever poses a real threat to him. He has his men everywhere—from top international intelligence agencies to rival cartels to local political parties, which makes him a near-invincible figure. This, in a way, makes Empuraan predictable to the T, especially when compared to Lucifer, which rode high on the enigma around its protagonist.