“It takes teamwork to make a dream work.”

— Sonny, in “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

And what a team to work with. If you truly loved the original, and millions did, you will still be in love this time out. I was delighted to see the entire original cast back in the remodeled hotel, with only a touch of doubt about ringing in an American, especially an old B list actor like Richard Gere, the former “American Gigolo.” But Gere blended in smoothly, and the silver-haired lover did a nice job without disturbing the much beloved gang.

Thank heavens we get Maggie Smith back as Muriel Donnelly. In the opening credits she is hurtling down an American highway with Sonny (Dev Patel) at the wheel of a fancy convertible. They are in San Diego to garner financial back up from the suave David Strathairn, so as to buy an additional property to expand back in Jaipur.

David agrees to go along, and will send his “guy” over to check it out, a too cute little game that promotes a mistaken identity game that goes on a bit too long.

But we don’t care.

We’re in the game with great actors, the cream of Britain’s best.

Along with Maggie, we welcome home the breathtaking, stunning, silver-haired Judi Dench, who can take what seems to be a 10-minute gaze and keep us glued to her eyes. That’s why our Judy is the queen of British cinema. Sorry Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren, but I get to vote.

Celia Imrie as Madge, the wonderful Bill Nighy and the creaky, charming old playboy Ronald Pickup, are all back dining nightly in the hotel’s charming and romantically candle lit restaurant. It’s all much nicer now with everything painted up and fancied.

It’s been, we’re told, eight months since we left them all there on various gardens, patios and rooms, sorting out the rest of their senior lives as they went about romancing one another in the purple clouds of incense and golden sunsets. I like the eight months thing, and I hope this is the final version. I really don’t want to go back after 10 years and find, say, Maggie Smith passed away, Judi in a wheelchair, the quirky, energetic Bill Nighy pushing a walker along the Ganges, or seeing our Indian host Dev Patel managing a 25-floor Radisson. Like the song says, “I’d rather leave while I’m in love” a song written by Peter Allan and recored by Rita Coolidge.

Now, Sonny is engaged to Sunaina (Tina Desai) and a wedding is in the offing.

Of course every jar of honey left open too long will draw at least one fly. One will be one of Sonny’s handsome, rich buddies who is poking around the new hotel deal. He also has eyes for Sunaina.

A bit of static pops up in the electricity between the aging lovers Carol (Diana Hardcastle) and the Randy Norman (pickup), and Madge is trying to wiggle out of the grasps of two much older and portly wealthy Indians, and then, drum roll, in walks a smooth American who says he’s a novelist. Madge takes one look and exclaims, “Be still my ovaries.” But there’s a twist and… Oh, never mind. It’s all kind of an old-fashioned feel-good dance with tears and laughs and no tomorrows.

It’s a Disney version of Jaipur, India, but who cares? It’s fun and wonderful.

What matters here is not Ol Parker’s script, which is sweet and lovable. It’s the players who are all so wonderfully right for the parts. Just watching Nighy stammering and shuffling his limbs about as he keeps trying to simply tell Maggie he wants to marry her as soon as … oh yes. Here comes the annoying but great Penelope Wilton, his wife who has gone to England and come back and is suing for divorce. The brilliant Wilton, who plays the so much different Isobel Crawley on “Downton Abbey” is flawless.

Director John Madden (Oscar winner for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love”) is smart enough to focus Ben Smithard’s camera on this incredibly talented cast and get out of the way. The result is a charming and satisfying homecoming. Madden and cast promised a good return and they have delivered a Bollywood clearing in a dark snowy March.

J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.