The situations are so tired and contrived there’s nothing that even such capable hands as Richa Chaddha and Pankaj Tripathi can do, to retain our interest.

Watch Fukrey Returns if you like but don’t expect the spark of the original. Plus, the giggles are more like a reminder of the original Fukrey and nothing more.

Fukrey Returns is a tedious 141-minute watch which is unfunny, unintelligent and repetitive.

Fukrey Returns, which arrives four years after Fukrey, sloppily riding the goodwill of the original, has to be endured, not enjoyed.

Where most members of Fukrey Returns are as superfluous as its new, blah soundtrack, the whimsical troika of Sharma, Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi do their best to lift its plodding pace with their distinct brand of humour.

But even the cub couldn’t suppress his yawn. I am only human.

All good things come to an end so that they aren’t stretched and made bad. Perhaps they should listen to the advice of their own creation Hunny who says “Yeh aukaad ka zamaana hai”. Not risking another Fukrey unless they have a amazing trump card up their sleeves would be a step in that direction.

As the film unravels, it gets as clumsy and annoying as Varun’s character. I laughed a bit and was interested for a while on how they would manage to arrange the money they needed, but eventually I was too bored to even care.

Watch it if you must. You wouldn’t really regret it if you even give this one a miss.

Make a film around Sharma/Chuchcha, if you wish, Mr Lamba. If you do intend to bring back the rest of Team Fukrey in a third venture though, please remember not to neglect them as you have done in this one. The consequence of that neglect is that Fukrey Returns is funny but its gnawing hollowness is impossible to ignore. It may as well have been a stand-up comedy show headlined by Varun Sharma instead of a film.

The trouble with sequels is that they need to take the story forward or put the protagonists in a new setting. Fukrey, the original mayhem was fun because the protagonists were losers and yet they had a knack of getting out of trouble. This film alas has none of the original humor, the jokes seem forced and out of really bad whatsapp forwards, the characters have no redeeming qualities and despite a bigger budget the story seems forced.

Making up for some blatantly juvenile word-based humour is the film’s electric editing. As the spoken words land with a sickening thud, the smooth cuts between characters whose expressions build off each other find those jagged gems of comedy in the murky landscape of this film.