Riding on the popularity of Charmme's 2009 hit spooky thriller 'Mantra', the new film offers not even a semblance of a thematic sequel.  The idea of pulling wool over the audience's eyes by creating suspicions about one or more innocent characters is stretched to a ridiculous extent here.  After successfully cheating the audience by deliberately projecting a character as having ulterior motives with respect to Mantra (Charmee), the narrative throws up a flawed idea of deliberately misrepresenting Mantra's bona fides.  The trick never works even for the few moments it is played because one is at a loss to rationalize the behaviour of the character in those scenes.

The film begins with a 8-minute sequence where Mantra sees herself being pursued by innocuous-looking characters.  The precocious character in Mantra is abandoned then and there and we are introduced to a Mantra who has only a passive role to play in taking the story forward (or even a Mantra who confuses the audience with her dumb expressions).  The palatial house where she lives with Tanikella Bharani and his wife is projected as an innocuous building and one feels the director went wrong in not helping the audience anticipate something mysterious about the structure.

The idea of a few characters ending up being threatened in a palatial bungalow has been done to death in our films.  The element has been caricatured here through poor visuals and an almost banalised BGM.

All the attempts to offer something beyond the spooky end up delivering half-baked sentimentality that begins abruptly and exits thanklessly.  Tanikella Bharani and his wife are dealt with so half-heartedly that their emotions are almost surreal (the characters should have been surreal yes, but not like this).  In one scene, Charmme almost makes a sick Tanikella cry when she says 'Please take care..' to him!  Tanikella also suggests that Mantra should get married, but in retrospect, you can't help thinking of this scene as horribly half-baked.

The sense of comedy is all about making a gay character lust after the men around him on that terrifying night.  Venu as Vasanthi shows some spark but the scenes themselves have no takeaway.  When not resorting to lifeless parodies, our films take refuge in SMS/Facebook jokes (read the 90 per cent discount on 'batanis').

The dialogue comes with age-old flavour, much like the stale storyline itself.  What is the utility of having lines like "Police lu, doctors epudaina, ekadaina untaru, undali?"  This is as old as Sharat Babu!

The director's sense of having links is terrible.  In a scene Tanikella tells Mantra that phones don't work inside the bungalow and in the second half, you see Mantra telling that to the ACP (played by Cheenu Chetan).

The attempts to indicate the lurking crime angle tests your patience as repeated attempts are made on Mantra's life.

As for Chetan's character, while the actor is has got a good diction, he doesn't get substantive scenes.  Charmme pales in comparison with her previous acts.  Enough is enough.  Don't have any character sing eulogies of her supposedly mind-blowing beauty.

The technical aspects pass muster, especially cinematography.

Verdict: 'Mantra 2' falters in dishing out a spooky thriller with a crime story topping.