Review of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015) by Callum H — 15 Mar 2015

Part of a Three Film Extravaganza.

Based off the first half an hour, I was anticipating a good time with this film. I was expecting a positive rating. I did not like the previous iteration into this series, and this film does not increase my patience for its idiocy, tameness and general lack of peculiarity. After the first act has completed, everything seems to grind to a halt, and the innumerable quantity of subplots begin to unravel at a disengaging and truly irritating pace. The message I got is that old people engage in a greatly underappreciated amount of infidelity, romance, perceived infidelity, intercourse and wondering about engaging in romance. And absolutely no one can be offended by anything in this movie; it's trying to appeal to everyone, and in doing so, alienates much of its audience.

In place of the character archetypes that were in play during the first installment, we have storylines which veer off into chasms of irrelevance, which is perhaps The Second Best's biggest fault. Apart from Dev Patel's overlong yet somewhat charismatic plot, the rest of the ensemble have a hard time maintaining the interest of one. There's an old guy whose wife may be engaging in infidelity, but we don't care, because it feels so random and half-assed. Judi Dench is thinking about banging the ever-underwhelming Bill Nighy, but it's just so boring.

Dev Patel is present and interesting enough to maintain one's attention throughout, and the locations, production design, costumes, cinematography and editing are as wonderful as always (though a few noticeable jarring cuts took me out of the film every once and a while). Thomas Newman is, in classic Thomas Newman fashion, predictable as all hell, but still reasonably effective within his allocated job. John Madden has tried to produce a vibrant and colourful film, and despite his visual grandeur, he can't bring forth much from the rather substance-less material. You may get half an hour of decent laughs, but after that, it feels as if it's an hour longer than it actually is, and that isn't a good sign.

What a terrible film to finish this extravaganza off with.