Housefull 2 is for four-year-olds who don’t know any better. For anyone with taste, or anyone seeking genuine laughs, there’s nothing here. I’m going with one out of five for director Sajid Khan’s Housefull 2. I’d rather watch reruns of his TV shows instead; they were pure gold compared to this drivel!

There were some so bad they were terrific. As the end neared after almost three hours, in which the cast is gathered in one place and let loose upon us, I came to this conclusion: ‘Housefull 2’ is better than ‘Housefull 1’, but only by a whisker. That’s the only metric to judge this film by.

Housefull 2 is shamefully bad. So bad that Ranjeet – the rapey villain of yore – who appears in one scene, is the most dignified thing about the film.

Housefull 2 has exactly the same mix of stars, foreign locations, farcical plot and spectacularly dim-witted comedy as the first Housefull. This is the cinematic equivalent of junk food – when you walk in, you know exactly what you’re going to get.

So what’s Housefull 2 about? Wrong question. Beyond a point, it’s only about keeping the embers of satire alive by hook or by over-cook. Somewhere down line the witticism wears thin. But there are comic actors of terrific aptitude holding aloft the thinner segments in the farcical fabric.

Housefull-2 is a bag of laughs with eye-candy – Akshay in linens, Jacqueline in minis – and some crackling performances.The film belongs to Akshay Kumar who carries off a sharp suit and ‘jhaari-mein-chalein’ jokes with glossy aplomb. And to Sajid Khan who, despite a smorgasbord of stars, ensures one prevails – the mad storyline. The music (Sajid-Wajid) could have been punchier while some scenes sag. But with cracks like, “Aasman se gire, Khajuraho mein atke,” as Akshay parachutes down on his mum-in-law, you can’t complain – unless you were looking for Einstein, of course.

One does agree there is a genre called madcap comedy and intelligence has nothing to do with it. Yet again, you cannot question the sensibility of the cine-goers today and all one demands from movies today is reasonable humour.

Go in with a promise that you’ll be entertained, but don’t expect an exhilarating journey.

What’s Good: The entertaining screenplay; a majority of the comedy dialogues; Akshay Kumar’s performance.What’s Bad: A few gags that don’t work; a few boring portions in the pre-interval portion.Verdict: Housefull 2 entertains. It will do good business at the box-office.Loo break: A couple during the songs.Watch or Not?: Certainly watch it as it is a madcap, albeit mindless, comedy.

On the whole, HOUSEFULL 2 is a madcap entertainer that gets the viewer giggling, yelling, whistling and applauding in his seat and you completely savor the fact that the spectators parked around you too are utterly engaged in the chaos and seeking maximum pleasure from the on-screen happenings. If you are a moviegoer who derives pleasure from loud comedies with over-the-top humor that defy logic at every opportunity, I am sure, you will relish this wacky slapstick. If your idea of watching a comedy is to have a good time at the movies, then HOUSEFULL 2 is especially designed for you.

Don’t go looking for a masterpiece; HOUSEFULL 2 delivers what it promises. Having said that, if the editing was a little sharper, 20 minutes snipped off would have made this film even more hilarious.

My rating might confuse you a little considering I have not really said many positive things about this movie. But here’s the fact: whether you like this movie or not definitely depends on where you see it and with whom. If you watch this in a multiplex, you might want to find Sajid and strangle him. But if you watch this a theatre with the ‘mass’ crowd with a group of friends – like I did – after a stressful day, you might end up enjoying this brainless caper.

This Sajid Khan film is certainly not for people who feel cinema needs to be driven by quality content and logic. Then, we are sorry to keep away from this film. But if you are someone who likes to chortle even for no reason or someone who believes in keeping the brains off while entering a cinema hall, then ‘Housefull 2’ is the right thing for you. Though the film has certain glitches, one can easily overlook them, for the film certainly promises a great deal of laughter that will leave you pleading for a break.