The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Starring: Dev Patel, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Billy Nighy, Celia Imrie, Richard Gere, Ronald Pickup, Diana Hardcastle, Tina Desai, Shaza Latif
Directed by: John Madden
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy, Drama
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: As the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel nears capacity, Sonny (Dev Patel) and his residents work to expand their business.

Review:

Tim: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel surprised me- it was a very fun, entertaining movie that featured a wonderful cast of aging actors. Not to make disparaging remarks about actors in the twilight of their careers, but Hollywood is typically brutal to actors considered "old", as great parts are few and far between. The first movie leveraged a remarkable cast to achieve its success. As so often happens, success leads to a sequel, so we're back with the wonderfully titled The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Unfortunately, the decrease in quality hinted at in the title shows up in spades in the actual film. While I liked the first one, this movie was borderline unwatchable.

This time around, something goes amiss with the story. John Madden was back as writer and director, but he's never able to give us compelling stories on screen. We have a very large cast, most of whom spend this movie doing things that are rather boring. We see a woman and man fail to connect as she's trying to get back into business and he's waiting for his family (man that sounds boring). There's another woman who is working to open a second hotel property. Another is trying to decide between two rich lovers. Another accidentally takes a hit out on his girlfriend (which started out funny but dies quickly after). There's two of of the younger people who are getting married but straining under all the pressure on them and worries of infidelity. It's all a combination of things we've seen multiple times before and isn't particularly engaging. I was thoroughly bored from start to finish here. That made the movie incredibly hard to watch.

The cast is once again strong, but it felt like everyone was phoning in their performances just a bit. The script really didn't help them at all. I thought Dev Patel was horrible. He overacts every scene in the movie and came across as a buffoon. He's got talent, but it was not on display here. Maggie Smith is great, but her crusty old woman without a filter thing got annoying. It was too one-note. Judi Dench and Bill Nighy were fine, but their performances suffer without anything compelling to do. They both have some awful dialogue as well. Richard Gere was a great addition to the cast, but I wish he had more to do. The rest of the cast was serviceable, but again, without compelling actions, their talent is wasted.

The script is full of cliches. We see a soon-to-be-married couple go through a rocky patch because the guy gets jealous and the girl is completely clueless. It felt so forced and unrealistic, I hated every time their story showed up on screen. We also get a mistaken identity plot that felt way over done. I admit being a bit surprised at the end, but it wasn't interesting to watch. We are asked to care about all these characters, yet the assumption is made that we already love them because of the original movie. While it may have been true at first, without being given good reasons to stay interested, everyone here eventually becomes a bore.

It's pretty obvious that I had a hard time sitting through this 122 minute (which is too long) movie. I admit I'm not the target demographic, but I enjoyed the first film. This time around, any magic that was present is completely lost. This felt like a cheap ripoff of the first movie, a carbon copy. It's significantly worse and bad enough that I really, really hope there's no Third Best movie. Let's allow this one to fade away peacefully.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel