With titles like Thank You, Welcome, Ready, No Entry, No Problem and Welcome Back to his credit, director Anees Bazmee doesn't need to look beyond his filmography to pen a book on how to get by in English. What he can also do justice to, is a paperback on how to pull off a sequel with a wafer-thin script, by leaning on performances and silly dialogues. One of the memorable ones include, "Maine vote daala nahin, toh mukhyamantri mera kaise hua?" a character argues, when his wife asks him to accept the son she had from a previous relationship.

'Welcome Back' primarily thrives on the caricatures of the earlier instalment. Because characters like Uday Shankar Shetty (Nana Patekar), Majnu (Anil Kapoor) and Dr. Ghungroo ( Paresh Rawal) were established as entertainers, director Aneez Bazmee has used them again to its optimum. The caricatures of the old characters are played out well in the first 15 minutes and it marks a good first impression.

There is a convenient phrase traditionally used in Bollywood to justify every mindless movie that is churned out of the factory. 'Welcome Back' is a blazing example of the 'Leave your brains at home' variety, because five minutes into this movie, you would want your brain cells to take a break, as you are busy guffawing at the absurdity of it all. The good thing is that this film.

The second half of 2015 is already brewing in a delicious soup of great films. The glorious and victorious year has come up with Anees Bazmee's 'Welcome Back' to tickle the funny bones of the movie buffs. If you haven't had a ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) moment in quite some time, then you should check this comedy out. A sequel to Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif starrer 'Welcome' (2007) is not a let down at all for the comedy lovers. It's rather a cabaret!

Across interviews and promotions for Welcome Back, the cast of the film has said that it is an 'entertainer'. That Anees Bazmee's Welcome Back is, hands down. A sequel to the 2007 Welcome, this edition of the comedy has more extravagant locales, money splashed all over the film and much mindless laughs.

Just when you thought Hindi cinema had evolved, comes Welcome Back, an indulgent potboiler. A sequel to Welcome (2007) by the same makers, here Majnu(Anil) and Uday(Nana) have left bhaigiri behind and become respectable hoteliers in Dubai. Occasionally, the red light in their heads go off like a police beacon, but they've learnt to control. Once again, both fall in love with the same girl-a newbie called Chandni(Ankita) who struts around in garish bikinis.

It's hard to call Welcome Back a new Anees Bazmee film when it has its foot so firmly entrenched in all things old. A raggedy bunch of ever-cool veteran actors -- Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Dimple Kapadia and Naseeruddin Shah -- all playing dons and liars and people with unpredictable, malicious intent?

When a certain movie clicks with the cinegoers and also enjoys a strong recall value, many filmmakers encash on it by making sequels. There have been many such films that mirror this trend. Franchises like DHOOM, TANU WEDS MANU, MURDER, DON, GOLMAAL, HOUSEFULL have been very successful with the film loving audiences. While some of the sequels hit goldmine at the box-office, others bit the dust. This week's release is WELCOME BACK, which happens to be the sequel to the 2007 hit comedy WELCOME.

In 2007, Anees Bazmee has brought Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar together for a laugh riot named Welcome and ever since the film released, fans of the film (myself included), had been waiting for the sequel Welcome Back, which finally released today. However, with all due respect, the sequel, despite trying hard doesn't match up to the charm of the prequel...

Welcome Back takes off from where the original Welcome (2007) ended. The now reformed Dubai based bhais Majnu (Anil Kapoor) and Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) - are still unmarried and remain virtually undateable. They are being conned by a PYT in a bikini (Ankita Srivastava) with the help of her mother (Dimple Kapadia) - a la Heartbreakers (2001). But the real twist in the tail happens when the duo are saddled with the task of getting Uday's newly found sister Ranjana (Shruti Hassan) married into a decent family.

A bunch of senior citizens (Anil Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar, Dimple Kapadia and Naseeruddin Shah) have been left loose by Anees Bazmee on screen. Behind the screen, where music is supposed to play, Bazmee has gathered an assortment of musicians to score a score so loud and jarring that you wonder what happened to the music of this film! There's also a lyricist who seems to be having fun, rather than writing lyrics for a Bollywood film.

The original was full of obligatory silliness. It had the sexist jokes (Paresh Rawal, playing Dr Ghungroo, keeps turning his head wherever there is a full bosom, and getting thwacked across the face for his pains). It had the juvenile lines. It had the characters leaping and shouting.

We are first re-introduced to Uday (Nana Patekar) and Majnu (Anil Kapoor) those loveable goons from the last film. Following the events of the last film, they have reformed and doing all white business. And they are craving for a wife as well! So far...so good....But picture to abhi baaki hai, and you sirs have to justify the existence of the sequel. So you bring a stepsister for Uday out of nowhere, using a flimsy and convenient plot-device of a tharki father (Nana Patekar again, insulting all South Indians and Shetty's in a single scene!).

Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) and Majnu Bhai (Anil Kapoor) are back but this time not as goons but ex-goons who run white collar business. Their antics are still the same, Uday trying to 'control' every time he loads a gun. In Uday's language, 'Bhagwan ka diya sab kuch hai', other than a wife that both are so desperately seeking for. In the midst of all this, Uday learns that his father has a daughter from his third marriage and that now it is his responsibility to find her a suitable goon - oops! groom.

With this bubbly Anu Malik song, Ajju Bhai (John Abraham) is introduced on the screen before he goes about doing what's been entrusted to him: to fill in for Akshay Kumar in the sequel of director Anees Bazmee's 2007 film Welcome. Has he hit the jackpot? Let's find out. It's been seven years since Rajiv married Sanjana in Welcome. We are told that Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) and Majnu Bhai (Anil Kapoor) have left the underworld for good and have shifted to Dubai.

When a movie idea overstays its welcome, it matters little whether its movement is back or forth. No matter how hard the makers try to rustle up something akin to a joyride, it can only yield the cinematic equivalent of a stale joke. Welcome Back rolls it all out with vengeance: snazzy automobiles, eye-popping locations, flashy conmen, a relentlessly obtrusive background score and an unconscionably elongated climax in the desert.

Uday and Majnu are, as someone points out in Welcome Back, the Laurel and Hardy of goondas. They are, to again quote the film, "khule saand": foolish, stubborn, ridiculous and flatter than cardboard cutouts. But here's what may come as a surprise: they and Welcome Back are also really, truly funny.