The first film was bright, pretty truthful about old age, and extremely watchable. This is a surprise sequel made because the first made so much money - and it shows. There is a lack of invention, very poor script, anodyne characterisation, and, worst of all, the plot line and meat of the film all belong to tele/film land rather than to real older people. You can see why middle aged, middle class film critics are praising it. There is little of the worries of old people (eg death, families left behind in UK, reflections on the past), India is a sanitised OK place (no hot climate, no crowds, no dirt) so they can go on expiating colonial guilt, no racism (such bad form and only for Mail readers), and the themes and tropes all belong to familiar cinematic conventions - eg infidelity, second marriage, unrequited love and no money worries! So the piece is really only held together by two of our greatest thespians - Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, while the subplots would disgrace 'Midsomer Murders!' What a wretched disappointment of a movie. This really does patronise the grey audience it is aimed at. Real life or any approximation of it is totally missing. While the Bollywood elements are just a tack on to meet the criticisms of the first film by those middle aged critics again - not enough representation of India, dahling! Oh really!
