We have grown wary of sequels. How will a second movie ever measure up to the freshness and the success of the first? How many "2"s have already disappointed us?

Well, this one didn't turn out badly at all. One reason for its quality is that the ENTIRE cast of the original 2002 movie came back for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. No substitute actors appear on the screen, and no chairs are missing from around the table. (In fact, a few new ones have even shown up.) And yes, too, 14 years had passed between the two films. This timing gave the story enough space to come around again without seeming to be too repetitive. Everyone has aged, including the audience. And lastly, the plot is interesting enough and funny enough that we can afford to be amused once again by the antics of this huge Greek American family.

Toula Portokalos Miller (Nia Vardalos) is a member of this family, based in Chicago. The last time we saw her, she was working as a travel agent for her aunt's business, the Mount Olympus Travel Agency. She had married teacher Ian Miller (John Corbett), and by the end of the first film, they had a young daughter. Toula had gained some independence from her claustrophobic family, even though her parents, Gus (Michael Constantine) and Maria (Lainie Kazan), still lived next door.

Now, more than a decade later, Ian is the high school principal, and Toula has unfortunately given up much of her individuality. She's back at work in her parents' restaurant, Dancing Zorba's. Toula has also become a helicopter parent, much to her daughter's dismay. Paris Miller (Elena Kampouris) is now 17 years old. She's got a lot on her anguished adolescent plate. She has to decide what to do about the upcoming prom. She has to decide which colleges to apply to. And she has to deal with (or wriggle out of) all of the attention that her parents and her extended family keep paying to her.

Paris comes from a long line of independent Portokalos women. She demands as much personal space as her mother once did. The question is: Will she choose to stay in Chicagoland?

Her grandfather, Gus Portokalos, is still in the habit of using squirts of Windex to fix everything. He has, however, passed on his passion for reciting Greek word origins to several of his grandsons. (Annoyingly so.) Now Gus is instead focused on genealogy. He aims to prove without a doubt that he is a direct descendant of Alexander the Great. When he learns how to use a computer and an online ancestry resource, Gus gets out the old records and paperwork and discovers that something is missing from his marriage certificate: the signature of the priest who performed the ceremony. Without it, Gus and Maria are technically not married. Oops! They emigrated from Greece together, have lived for 50 years together, have three adult children and a passel of grands. Now what? Do they have to get married again? So, the main question this time is: Will they or won't they?

Again, the most overbearing of the satellite relatives is Aunt Voula (Andrea Martin), who makes it her business to be involved in everything that happens within the family circle. We meet a couple of new parishioners at the Greek Orthodox Church, George and Anna Nikos (John Stamos and Rita Wilson). And Paris may end up with a new friend, too.

Toula and Ian find themselves in "the sandwich generation" -- that time of life when one has to tend to both one's parents and one's children. It can be a frustrating situation. And with the "officialness" issue that Gus and Maria are dealing with, Toula and Ian are given the chance to pause and to think about the state of their own marriage, too. They have both been busy with everything else that's going on, and not with one another.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is a delight of a romantic comedy and a nice follow-up to the original. Sure, a few gratuitous scenes of free-for-all slapstick pop up every now and then. But they kind of have to, because everyone here is Greek. Overall, many audience members should be able to relate to the situations that these characters are facing on the screen. And they'll want to laugh and to smile at the outcomes.