The stakes are higher, the cast has lost any pandemic-paunch/puffiness and everybody tries harder in “Vacation Friends 2,” which is something, I guess.

And having John Cena reveal to the world, via a scripted character’s little admission, what we’ve all been thinking is a plus.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everybody likes me.”

But even with a Caribbean get-away and the addition of a baby, drug-dealers and Steve Buscemi at his sketchiest, this sequel is a watered-down umbrella drink of a comedy. The set-ups – casino to first-time-surfing to escaping a cartel — are tired and the jokes are limp and random recyclings of the 2021 original film.

Still, here goes. Two years after meeting and becoming “Vacation Friends” with the unhinged, uninhibited vulgarians Ron and Kyla (Cena and Meredith Hagner), we and they remember that Marcus and Emily (Lil Rel Howery and Yvonne Orji) found some redeeming qualities in those two reprobates.

That’s why they’ve invited the couple and their new baby to a Caribbean resort, with Marcus slated to make a pitch to build a Chicago hotel to the same Korean hotel/resort ownership group that runs it.

They’ve hired and brought along their favorite amusingly-unctuous hotel manager (Carlos Santos) from the coastal Mexican resort where they met to babysit.

A little patronizing, but OK.

Emily and Marcus are in baby-making mode themselves, and figure a little romance and hanging with two gonzos who have a better idea of how to “just have fun” is a good plan.

As you’ve guessed, the “meeting” and pitch is moved up, and the exec running that presentation (the amusing Ronnie Chieng) is not a Marcus Parker fan.

Kyla and Ron waste no time in embarrassing Marcus, and to add to that, her dad (Buscemi) shows up, fresh out of prison for “money laundering,” or so he says. He’s talking “crypto” and sneaking off to meet shady locals and a trigger-happy drug dealer (Jamie Hector).

What could go wrong? That doesn’t involve being tricked into snorkeling in Cuba, getting shot at on multiple occasions and trying to figure out how to escape a sinking shipping container?

The awkward interactions with Koreans — getting into old-fashioned Asian drinking games “to bond” — are probably the most promising thing here, and those scenes are few.

Cena’s cockeyed optimism in character is a little less funny than it was the first time, and Howery is at a loss in how to wring gigggles out of this script.

But there are moments. Buscemi does that weasely, snarky, sketchy thing he does, Santos channels Ricardo Montalban in his big moments and Hector carries himself the way movie drug dealers do, with a pistol-in-the-belt swagger.

Lil Rel has his (played out) go-to moves, and Cena, as his character points out, is “liked” by pretty much “everybody.

If it weren’t for the overwhelming feeling of “winded and exhausted” that the picture wears in every scene, they might have gotten something funnier out of this.

Rating: R, Drug use, some sexual references, pervasive profanity

Cast: Lil Rel Howery, John Cena, Yvonne Orji, Meredith Hagner, Carlos Santos, Ronnie Chieng, Jamie Hector and Steve Buscemi

Credits: Scripted and directed by Clay Tarver, based on characters created by John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Tim Mullen, Tom Mullen and Clay Tarver. A 20th Century release on Hulu.

Running time: 1:46