Bhaskar (Varun Dhawan) is a road contractor from Delhi who cares more about money than trees. He travels to Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh with his cousin Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) to build a highway through a forest the locals want to protect. One night, a wolf bites him, and soon he can smell, hear and talk to animals, and something much worse happens when the moon comes up.
The transformation scenes are the best in Indian cinema, a real step up for Bollywood visual effects. The forests look beautiful and mysterious, and Jishnu Bhattacharjee's camera makes Arunachal Pradesh feel magical.
Abhishek Banerjee and Deepak Dobriyal steal most of the scenes with their comic timing, and the song "Thumkeshwari" is pure fun. Varun Dhawan commits fully to the role, though the romance with Kriti Sanon feels thin. The film also handles prejudice against people from India's Northeast with jokes that are sometimes clumsy and sometimes sharp.
At about two and a half hours, it is too long, and the middle sags. It is not very scary either. But Bhediya is a fun, good-looking creature comedy with a heart, and a key part of the Maddock universe.
