‘Welcome Back’ has a different lead cast on offer but the trio of Majnu Bhai, Uday Bhai and Dr. Ghungroo make a comeback on screen yet again. There is John Abraham as ‘Ajju Bhai’ and Naseeruddin Shah, ‘the baap of bhai’s’ and not to forget Shiney Ahuja and Dimple Kapadia who do not really provide any interesting element to the film. However, the dialogues do give us some reason to laugh and watch the film. Will all of them be able to recreate the magic of the first part? Well, the bad graphics and poor storyline along with the climax don’t stand a chance in winning the audiences heart. The movie is not worth watching, if you are expecting freshness and something new on offer.
Dear fans of Welcome, before you start missing Akshay Kumar’s innocent act, we tell you that it's sequel, Welcome Back, is much more ambitious and the director has concentrated more on the grandeur of the sets than the chemistry between the actors. The trailers promised a larger canvas, but Bazmee hasn’t been successful in getting it just there. Really bad CGI and meaningless wide-angle shots have harmed his cause even more. Not that Welcome Back lacks in resources. After all you have actors like Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor doing what you ask them to, but there is no cohesive force in this one unlike the previous film where Akshay Kumar held everything together. John Abraham tries his best to do an Akki act, but a weak script pulls him down again and again. The film’s climax is a letdown. It’s stretched and unimaginative. Computer generated images are tacky and lackluster. In today’s world of super-nuanced CGI, Welcome Back stands absolutely no chance. Welcome Back is funny in parts, but that ‘Welcome’ fluidity is missing big time. There are moments but they are very limited in number. Welcome Back’s pace is its biggest asset and that may make you enjoy this 153-minute long film.
Sequels tend to be superfluous. In Bollywood one that comes seven years after the original, and delayed by a year, becomes more so. But Welcome Back is a comedy that sticks to the tried-and-tested formula because it delivers laughs. Logic? What's that? It doesn't even bother coming up with a new storyline. Yet it all works because in doing so it doesn't take itself too seriously or attempt to be clever. With Raj Shaandaliya in the dialogues department and the great partnership of Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar, it consistently keeps viewers rolling on the floor with laughter or just giggling away. This is a nonsensical comedy which actually succeeds in being one with copious amount of quotable one-liners. "Gun aur gun ki spelling ek hoti hai" and "Unke ghar mein makkhiyaan bhi dupatta leke udti hai" being two of the many. But this leave-your-brains-at-home entertainment also has its limits. The second half is not as effective as the first. Welcome Back begins to test your patience. The high-pitched battles and the ostentatious sets begin to numb the senses. The OTT climax has its moments - there are mini helicopters and camels and a desert storm - but it also feels dragged. If not for Patekar and Kapoor, the two jovial leads, Welcome Back would have been a forgettable affair. Anees Bazmee, Rajiv Kaul, Rajan Aggarwal and Praful Parekh with the help of Shandaliya pack the script with just enough word play and gags. It manages to be a welcomed sequel, one which tickles the funny bone.
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. But nothing that this nonsensical action comedy unleashes, not even the in-form Anil Kapoor-Nana Patekar pair, can compensate for its absence of substance. Welcome Back, a follow-up to a money-spinning comic romp made all of seven years ago, is as appealing as a dunk in a garbage dump.
It's hard to call Welcome Back a new Anees Bazmee film when it has its foot so firmly entrenched in all things old. The story is an absurdly silly one, but told at a thankfully brisk clip. It all sounds quite unwatchable -- and some parts certainly are -- but thanks to the astoundingly fit elder statesmen in charge, Welcome Back provides its share of ludicrous laughs. The first film had Akshay Kumar to shoulder all the buffoonery, and while even that only added up to a barely watchable film, here Abraham is an utter trainwreck and the Hassan girl doesn't help.Still, Welcome Back is dumb yet entertaining, utterly silly but made with a kind of absurd, warm energy. It's actually amusing even if it goes on far too long, and while I don't recommend going to a theatre to watch this mess, you'll sure get your money's worth watching it on TV. Plus, there's something to be said for a film where the climax features a cute peach microlight bringing about a bunch of killer drones. If only this were shorter, crisper, a bit smarter, with just a touch more… um, control, Mr Bazmee, control.
Eight years after ‘Welcome’, the crew is back. And the only question we are left asking is ‘why’? The original was full of obligatory silliness. It had the sexist jokes. It had the juvenile lines. It had the characters leaping and shouting. It was, basically, the big loud Bollywood comedy, with a plot that would make a wafer look thick, just situational gags, piled upon each other. ‘Welcome’ had a welcome lightness in most of its steps. And it made us laugh. ‘Welcome Back’, minus Akshay and Katrina, plus John and Shruti, and Dimple and a new girl, and Naseer and Shiney, clomps about, looking for the laughs. And failing, mostly, to find them. There really is no reason why the sequel, despite the collective clunkiness of John and Shruti, shouldn’t have worked in exactly the same way. But the jagged narrative and heavy-handed manner of delivering dialogue, much more risible and tasteless than the original, ruins it. We’ve moved on ; the film, and its treatment, hasn’t. A characters keeps saying: ‘mazaak tha bhai, mazaak’. A comedy which uses this line so many times is telling you to laugh. Where’s the show?