The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Grade: B –

Director: John Madden

Starring: Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, Tin Sesai, Lillete Dubey, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, Diana Hardcastle and David Strathairn

MPAA Rating: PG

Running Time: 2 hr. 2 min.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel furthers this now-film series’ status as the The Expendables for the British acting troupe, now including Richard Gere for the randy sexagenarian set. It’s also their paid excuse for a return Indian getaway, except, like many repeat vacations, it doesn’t duplicate the same sense of charming surprise as the initial outing.

The core characters return to the long-term Jaipur resort. Evelyn and Douglas (Judi Dench and Bill Nighy) venture into the local workforce and their evolving romance with equal trepidation. Norman and Carol (Ronald Pickup and Diana Hardcastle) grapple with mutual, rather risible infidelity. Madge (Celia Imrie) is still juggling Indian suitors. Innkeeper Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) is preparing to marry Sunaina (Tina Desai). Meanwhile, Sonny and his irascible assistant Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith), in the midst of courting an American investor (David Strathairn) to realize their hopes of expansion, prepare for the arrival of a clandestine hotel inspector.

On cue, a suspicious stranger arrives named Guy Chambers (Gere), an American expat looking to complete his long-gestating novel. Guy finds literary and romantic inspiration with Sonny’s mother (Lillete Dubey), to her son’s consternation.

Contrived conflicts come and wane with rapidity, punctuated by pithy quips and charismatic inertia. Patel gets the elephant’s share of the excitable scenes, and Smith provides the emotional and comedic heart of the film. But the bulk of the cast amble through their paces, lending uninspired effort to the uninspired plot set amid an admittedly vibrant setting.

Capped, of course, by a wedding scene and Bollywood-style song-and-dance routine, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is lite viewing for a warm bath drawn on a rainy day. You won’t remember much about it, and you won’t rightly need to.

Skyfall

No Licence for Old Men

Grade: B +
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hr. 23 min.

 During the latter half of Skyfall, Judi Dench’s M, testifying before a bureaucratic inquest declares that today’s true threats to safety and security are “individuals, not nations.” Punctuated by a passage from Tennyson’s Ulysses, the expertly edited scene plays like a commentary on our post-bin Laden world. However, the megalomaniac or terrorist-led organization was always the central villain throughout Ian Fleming’s James Bond books and the now-50 years of films they spawned, unlike most of Fleming’s Cold War spy novel counterparts.

It’s an allusion that’s likely intentional, for Skyfall is steeped in a nostalgia for cinema’s most enduring series. The indomitable iconography of the Bond films continues to make every new release an event. However, here it serves a more fundamental function. Whereas Casino Royale was a reboot of the Bond franchise, this represents a restoration.

Opening with a mistaken demise that harks back to You Only Live Twice, death and rebirth are the film’s overarching themes. Bond (Daniel Craig), a neurotic who word-associates “murder” with “employment” and “woman” with “provocatrix,” uses pills and drink to self-medicate demons dating back to some unresolved childhood trauma. He’s also a relic in the age of cyberterrorism where, to quote his new quartermaster (Ben Whishaw), “I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.” Meanwhile, M is a lioness in winter, on the eve of forced retirement after a computer list of undercover NATO spies is stolen and slowly leaked online.

Beginning with the hunt for a disposable henchman that leads to bedding a disposal Bond girl, Skyfall tracks the familiar tropes. It also teeters on the tedium of the Brosnan years until the arrive of Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), once M’s favorite MI6 agent given up for dead, but now resurrected as a cyberterrorist burdened with a facial prosthetic and single-minded desire for reprisal against his former minder. Ernst Blofeld is the most iconic Bond villain, but Silva is the most demonic, a devilish dandy that suggests a blond-haired Anton Chigurh with charisma. Trying to off M is bad enough, but it takes pure evil to go out of your way to destroy Bond’s Aston Martin DBS.

The supporting cast also includes Ralph Fiennes as an intelligence overseer and Albert Finney as Kincaide, the gamekeeper at Bond’s titular family estate. But the real stars of Skyfall are Craig, Bardem and cinematographer Roger Deakins. While still the portrait of brooding intensity, Craig also shows a relaxed and more self-assured side, much like Sean Connery’s evolution as Bond from Dr. No through Thunderball. Deakins, the nine-time Oscar nominee, takes a Bond movie and makes a visual spectacle, from a rooftop motorcycle chase through Istanbul to the neon silhouettes atop a Shanghai skyscraper to a lantern-lit flotilla in Macau to the cold blue hues of a decaying pastoral manse (by way of Surrey, England). 

In its eagerness for homage, Skyfall makes a bigger jumble of the Bond timeline (particularly a film-ending reveal). However, chronological purity goes out the window once you accept a protagonist who never ages, even over 50 years. The biggest quibble is that, despite a number of memorable scenes and plot turns, the screenplay from Oscar nominee John Logan plus Bond regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade isn’t tightly organized or particularly subversive beyond Bardem’s Silva. The spiritual three-way between Bond, Silva and M is teased out but never consummated to its delicious potential. Moreover, Skyfall could have dovetailed off Casino Royale to further redefine James Bond. Instead, it settles for reintroducing him. Anyway, welcome back, old friend.

*Originally published at www.indyweek.com

Nine

Victoria's Secret

Grade: D +

Director: Rob Marshall

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Stacy Ferguson, and Sophia Loren

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes

Revisiting the musical genre for the first time since his Oscar-winning Chicago, director Rob Marshall adapts another Broadway production based on previous work with Nine. The film is based on the Tony-award winning musical, itself derived from an Italian play by Mario Fratti inspired by Federico Fellini’s 1963 autobiographical film, 8 ½ . Even if the pedigree for Marshall’s film is as muddled as a Fellini storyline, one thing is crystal clear: Nine is a bombastic mess.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays esteemed 50-year-old Italian director Guido Contini, now suffering a midlife crisis and bout of writer’s block just as filming is poised to begin on his epic comeback, tentatively titled Italia. As Guido tries to jumpstart his creative juices, he is forced to confront his chaotic personal life by reconciling a bevy of formative women in his life. They include Luisa (Marion Cotillard), his diffident wife; Carla (Penélope Cruz), his comely (and cuckoo) mistress; Claudia (Nicole Kidman), his platinum-blond film-star muse; Lili (Judi Dench), his confidant and costume designer; Stephanie (Kate Hudson), an American Vogue fashion reporter; Saraghina (Stacy Ferguson, a/k/a Fergie), a mondana from his youth; and his mother (Sophia Loren).

Set in 1965, Nine aims to present a multilayered, contemplative examination of life, love and craft, much like its Fellini forbearer. In actuality, the screenplay by Michael Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella depicts the philandering, chain-smoking, sports-car driving Guido as a monumental bore who spends more time lamenting his inability to make new films than convincing us he was ever capable of crafting one.

There is a glint in Day-Lewis’ eye that suggests a great actor aching to unleash his talents but not quite sure how with the material he’s been given. Even still, Guido’s accent—particularly when singing—sounds weirdly like The Count from Sesame Street. That is better than Dench, I suppose, who doesn’t even try; her brogue is as Italian as Chef Boyardee.

The already lackluster narrative interludes feel like mere bridges to the next musical offering. With the occasional exception of Luisa, the rest of the female characters exist mainly for their particularized songs, most of them burlesque, kitschy spectacles that are a bit like watching a Cirque du Soleil show sans the acrobatics. Indeed, this disposable use of seven A-list actresses is emblematic of 2009’s woeful roster of female film roles.

The only thing worse than Guido’s chronic, self-induced malaise is Maury Yeston’s ear-gouging lyrics. The original Broadway numbers are grueling enough, including the treacly “My Husband Makes Movies” and a garish production of “Be Italian” featuring Fergie. What’s more, Yeston penned three new songs for the film, including Hudson’s retched “Cinema Italiano” (sample lyrics: “Those scenes I love to see / From Guido’s POV / There’s no one else with his unique director’s vision”).

Forget Guido—those responsible for Nine were apparently the ones afflicted with a bad case of writer’s block. In their case, the cure is worse than the disease.

Neil Morris

Quantum of Solace

Worst first date ever...

Grade: B

Director: Marc Forster

Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, and Jeffrey Wright

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Theaters: Spring Lane Cinemas in Sanford; Sand Hills Cinemas in Southern Pines; Crossroads 20 in Cary

A woman lies prone on a bed, her naked, post-coitus body facedown and completely coated with a precious natural substance suffocating her skin, killing her in the process. This scene from Goldfinger is among the most recognizable in the James Bond canon, and, interestingly, it is replicated meticulously in the latest Bond entry, Quantum of Solace. But, instead of Jill Masterson being lacquered in gold paint, today a British agent named Strawberry Fields is soaked cap-a-pie in black gold.

The recycled image is obviously nostalgic, but it also speaks to the passage of time rather than just a rewind of it. Today’s wars are fought over oil, and enemies of Western civilization are funded by oil revenues paid by the very governments they detest. Still, like much in Quantum of Solace, the episode is iconic without triggering the requisite level of iconography.

Still smarting from the betrayal by the late Vesper Lynd at the end of Casino Royale, Bond (Daniel Craig) throws himself headlong into rooting out those responsible for corrupting and killing her, a shadowy global terrorist conglomerate named QUANTUM. While dismantling QUANTUM is also the aim of British Intelligence, this sets the stage for the “Don’t make this personal” lecture M has been giving 007 since the Sean Connery days. When Bond goes rogue to escape the strictures of his MI6 minders, it recalls the defrocked Bond in Licence to Kill.

One can adore Bond lore while also recognizing the need to conjure a new paradigm. And, after its heralded reboot in Casino Royale, the Bond franchise seemed poised to reclaim its cinematic spy thriller crown. But, inside its opening 10 minutes, QOS reverts to some of the atrophy that plagued the Pierce Brosnan and latter Roger Moore eras. The pre-credits sequence – filmed with a neo-Bourne, camera-in-a-blender flair – is a car chase that goes nowhere. From there, it’s onto the regrettable return of the shopworn title sequence with its bevy of silhouetted dancing girls and phallic gunfire.

The rest of the remarkably short (106 minutes) film is a rather truncated affair filled with conservative fodder. Evoking the Red Scare fears of the 1950s, QUANTUM converts infiltrate the highest levels government worldwide, including the inner circle of M (Judi Dench). The CIA gets in bed with one arm of the terrorist organization in hopes of securing oil rights in the countries they disrupt, to the consternation of agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, still channeling the righteous indignity of his Colin Powell in W.). And, the villain du jour is Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a QUANTUM appendage masquerading as an environmentalist who specializes in hijacking the water supplies of Third World countries and then exacting hefty ransoms out of the despots he props up.

One significant area where this Bond film wisely distinguishes itself from its predecessors is adopting a continuity of storyline back to Casino Royale. However, only once does a new Bond order really manifest itself. Against the stunning backdrop of a production of Puccini’s “Tosca” taking place on the floating Seebühne along Lake Constance in Bregenz, Austria, Bond manages to unmask members of QUANTUM as they carry on a furtive meeting in plain sight among the throng of regular opera-goers. It is one of the most sublime sequences in the entirety of Bond films, both in its Hitchcockian execution and the choice of “Tosca,” an opera dealing with deception and revenge.

That said, director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland; Monster’s Ball) fails to fully realize the film’s thematic potential before Bond and gal pal Camille (Olga Kurylenko, Hitman but memorable – at least for me – as the sexy vampiress in Paris, je t’aime), herself on a related revenge mission, veer into the proverbial climactic showdown inside the villain’s lair (here, a giant eco-hotel in the desert powered by hydrogen fuel cells). The script is the product of 5 screenwriters and multiple rewrites, which generates several showcase scenes that never mesh into a cohesive whole.

What elevates even this middling Bond chapter is Craig, making his sophomore appearance in the series. His 007 is taciturn and seemingly emotionally cold, but he is actually a more human Bond, one who bleeds when injured and constantly does silent battle with his stifling neuroses. Quantum of Solace draws its name from the third short story in Ian Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only compilation. Although its narrative bears no relation to the film, the crux of the simple story rests on Bond’s sudden recognition that his adventure-filled life lacks even the smallest unit of compassion and pales in comparison to everyday human drama. Moreover, Bond implicitly realizes that no one has a “quantum of solace” for him, either.

In essence, the ongoing charge to revive the Bond films is a search for its own quantum of solace beneath the patina of glitz and brand marketing. For all its strengths, this latest effort tries to have it both ways. Instead, Quantum of Solace is further proof that oil and water just don’t mix.

Neil Morris