“Semi-Soeter” is a broad, low-hanging fruit “Who has time for a baby?” comedy from South Africa.

It’s a sequel to “Semi-Soet” (Semi Sweet), a 2012 South African hit about an ad agency careerist, Jaci (Anel Alexander) who hires a model to be her fake boyfriend, J.P. (Nico Panagio) to close a deal. The new film brings back our leads, now long-married and committed to remaining baby-free a dozen years later.

But there’s this OTHER deal with a baby product empire. Maybe if they pretend to have a baby? Surely they wouldn’t…

Ah, but that’s the point of bringing back their besties, long-married/lots of kids Karla (Sandra Vaughn, who co-wrote the sequel with Alexander) and Hertjie (Louw Venter). They’ve been breeding like guppies over the past dozen years. Of course they’ve got an infant to lend out. They INSIST.

That’s literally the plot of this bland and predictable farce, with Karla and Hertjie shoving their newborn onto Jaci/J.P. at one of those “weekend retreat at a resort” competitions to “win” the Texas-based yBab Co. account.

Every single thing in that last sentence only happens in film comedies, most often in the least original ones.

J.P. has let out that his “swimmers” have problems, so Jaci can’t get pregnant. But she is, and even though it’s by him, she can’t bring herself to tell him she’s with child. So they’re stuck with her secret and a pooping, borrowed baby who seems to justify J.P.’s aversion to parenthood with every fresh diaperload. Jaci can’t tell him because she thinks he’s baby-phobic. As we see how ineptly Jaci handles the infant herself, we wonder if either of these two — rich as they are — is cut out for parenthood.

J.P.’s old boarding school rival (Neels van Jaarsveld) and his celebrity wife (Diann Lawrenson) are up for the same account. That “baby” seems suspicious to them, so a little sabotage-their-scam is in order.

Pal Hertjie wonders if their old classmate “still has that ‘Punch Me’ face?” Hint. Of course he does.

Baby monitor gags, lost baby jokes, a diaper “tasting” game straight out of baby showers and a whole subplot about a start-up rugby league in Dubai needing advertising/PR help, with a security-conscious sheikh playing into the narrative as another reason “We can’t have a baby” all figure in what’s to come.

If you’ve seen one “what’s the deal with babies” comedy, you’ve heard the “What do they FEED him?” (in Afrikaans, or dubbed into English) joke more than once.

Even dubbed, the dialogue has lots of South African slang for barbecue (braii), lots of talk about the ‘Boks — if you remember the Matt Damon/Morgan Freeman drama “Invictus,” you remember the national rugby team is called The Springboks — and the like.

Our South African-born “Texan” entrepreneur (Hélène Truter) speaks with a South African/Texan drawl. Most peculiar.

The odd Elon Musk reference just underscores the film’s affluent resorts and exclusive housing developments setting, and the fact that Black faces are rarely seen in this (comic, cinematic, not-wholly-post-Apartheid) world.

The tone is light enough, even if we have to wonder why these particular rich Afrikaners haven’t figured out money makes procreating easy.

But what’s most-missed in this corny comedy are jokes. Just a couple of one-liners, a sight gag and a lone bit of physical shtick translate as funny.

The rest is as colorless as its cast.

Rating: TV-PG, pooh-pooh jokes

Cast: Anel Alexander, Nico Paganio, Louw Venter, Sandra Vaughn,
Diaan Lawrenson, Hélène Truter and Neels van Jaarsveld

Credits: Directed by Joshua Rous, scripted by Sandra Vaughn and Anel Alexander. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:38