THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

2015 rating: *

It made perfect sense that Dev Patel’s Sonny Kapoor was overly excited in THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL since he was hiding something: the entire premise of a plush residence for the elderly in India, actually a dilapidated dive, was all his ruse... The place wasn’t as nice as the ads, and, when a group of British old-timers showed up, it took an entire film for each to realize it was home sweet home.

This time, Patel has more energy than a young Jerry Lewis on crystal meth… His overacting is so horrendous, you’ll want to center on those same old people who, sadly, have very little to do other than sightseeing locations previously covered. Maggie Smith's former racist grouch is lost within stressful preparations of a planned Bollywood style wedding between Sonny and his fiance, our former leading lady Judy Dench and her love interest Bill Nighy are stuck in the mud while the “and the rest” characters haven’t progressed either. Meanwhile, special guest star Richard Gere shows up under not-so-mysterious circumstances, wasted in a pointless courtship subplot and possibly having to do with the old hotel expanding into a new improved, legitimate building. In that, this more expensive sequel pales to an original story that was simply just-okay to begin with.