Want to know how this compares to the first instalment of the English-ex-pats-find-friends-in-India comedy drama? It's in the title.

With a role-call of BAFTA elite (old-timers Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Diana Hardcastle, Penelope Wilton and Ronald Pickup alongside US import Richard Gere and The Newsroom's Dev Patel for youthful glee), we return to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel For The Elderly And Beautiful to find that, to the guest's surprise and ours, they're still alive.

There is a loose thread of a story which loosely works a theme of preoccupation threatening true love. A guest (Gere) is mistaken for a hotel inspector sent by potential investors; though why Muriel (Smith) and Sonny (Patel) had sought cash stateside is never adequately explained. Sonny's preoccupation with the man threatens his engagement to Sunaina (Tina Desai). Her preoccupation with the wedding threatens him. Evelyn's (Dench) preoccupation with a new job threatens the possibility of romance with Douglas (Nighy), and so on. The only ones who get anywhere are Guy (Gere) and Sonny's Mum, which feels very awkward when it's not simply absurd.

With John Madden (Shakespeare In Love) on auto-pilot, the crux of the problem lies in Ol Parker's lacklustre script which is missing all of the (relative) subtleties that gave his first film its legs. Without the delicacy of characters like Graham (played by Tom Wilkinson), the spark of saucy Madge (Imrie), the sadness of anxious Jean (Wilton) or the frisson of Muriel's racism we're left with hysterical Sonny (funny, up to a point) and the bewildered silver fox in front of an appealing back drop. Interest and enthusiasm soon wanes.

Sadly, this feels every bit the junket it probably is; a thinly veiled excuse to make a film with some mates while the producer's milk the title for all it's worth. It may well find favour among the actors' burgeoning fan base but in all regards, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is exactly that – second best.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 18 February 2015