Bhoothnath Returns tries to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo and while the selling is pitch-perfect why would an Eskimo need a machine to keep things cold? You are making a sequel to a film which was a hit among children and your target audience is again kids but you talk about ‘parivartan’, why more people need to vote and how voting can bring about change. Come on, a 10-year-old cannot vote even if the film inspires him to do so!

But all the misfiring happens in the second half. The sequel to the 2008 comedy starts on a charming note when Bhoothnath (Amitabh Bachchan) goes back to Bhooth World and realises that he is a laughing stock there among ghosts because he couldn’t scare the kid on earth. To clean his image he chooses to come back on earth to scare a few children.

And, lo and behold, another kid can see Bhoothnath. He is Akhrot (Parth Bhalerao) who lives in the slums of Dharavi and who helps the Satyug ke bhooth scare a few Kalyug ke kids. Thus forms a bonding similar to the Bhoothnath-Banku bonding from the first film. There’s also a business interest. Through Akhrot, Bhoothnath strikes deals with builders and gets rid of ghosts from haunted construction buildings, in the process helping the poor ‘slumdog’ make some money. “Tu crease pe khada ho ja, batting main karta hoon!”

All is good in the hood till the gunda politician Bhau (Boman Irani) asks Akhrot to clear one of his construction buildings leading to a deeper insight into his multi-faceted wickedness. A very public service commission music video comprising still photos of poor malnourished kids follows and Bhoothnath is ready to contest the elections. Because no law of the country says that the candidate needs to be alive to contest.

This is where the first half ends. So do the fun and games. Almost the entire second half is centred around the election. From making the common man aware of his rights to getting everyone voter ID cards to vote for change to not treat the polling day as a holiday, it’s a no-brainer why Bhoothnath has returned this election season. The film will surely be made tax-free at some point but at what cost? Of becoming fun-free.

Director Nitesh Tiwari, who had co-directed Chillar Party with Vikas Bahl (Queen), is a skilled storyteller and is good at handling kids but he doesn’t have the judiciousness of a Rajkumar Hirani to mix gyan with giggles or guffaws. Till the point he doesn’t want to make a point, Bhoothnath Returns is gold but then Papa chooses to preach.

Of course, the presence of Amitabh Bachchan makes things easy on the senses. He is delightful throughout the film and reprises the same kind of childlike energy as in the 2008 movie. His scenes with Parth are so much fun that you wish they could just loop the first half twice. The boy himself is a natural in front of the camera and, like Aman Siddiqui in Bhoothnath, is quite the beating heart of the film.

Boman has played Bhau in quite a few films now and tries hard to ward off the been-there-done-that feeling. Sanjay Mishra returns after Ankhon Dekhi and is again excellent as the lawyer helping Bhoothnath in his cause and case. As for the cheap thrills, Anurag Kashyap and Ranbir Kapoor have fun cameos. And like in the first film, Shah Rukh Khan makes a guest appearance and although he has a scene with AB, they don’t share the same frame. Alas!

With election in the air, this new release is well-timed and well-intentioned but not entirely the fun children’s film the franchise was built around. The kids can still go and party in the first half, while the accompanying adults can take notes in the second, before their polling day arrives. Gandhi Modi sab bekaar; abki baar Bhoot sarkar!