{"id":643,"date":"2015-03-14T14:42:41","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T19:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturated.com\/?p=643"},"modified":"2015-03-14T14:48:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T19:48:29","slug":"the-second-best-exotic-marigold-hotel-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/the-second-best-exotic-marigold-hotel-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning caught in a bottle does not strike twice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Clich\u00e9 though that phrase may be, it\u2019s still better than most of the mangled English sayings that are so plentiful in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/the_second_best_exotic_marigold_hotel\/\"><strong><em>The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel<\/em>,<\/strong><\/a> they quickly become more annoying than adorable.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Both meanings of the film\u2019s title are painfully accurate. The main storyline is about Sonny\u2019s (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dev_Patel\"><strong>Dev Patel<\/strong><\/a>) attempt to expand the titular hotel into a mini-chain. Unfortunately, it\u2019s a pale shadow of the first film, coming across as a desperate attempt to make its surprise success pay additional dividends.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3REYWGRmLnQ\" width=\"650\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Most of the original cast (except for Tom Wilkinson) is back again, still living and loving in the Jaipur, India hotel that\u2019s become a retirement home for Brits who can\u2019t afford to live in Downton Abbey. And some of them are still working.\n<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The sequel is built around Sonny\u2019s impending wedding to Sunaina (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tena_Desae\"><strong>Tina Desai<\/strong><\/a>). But new complications are found for all of the major characters, mostly\u00a0involving jealousy and suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Judi_Dench\"><strong>Dame Judi Dench<\/strong><\/a> is still waiting for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bill_Nighy\"><strong>Bill Nighy<\/strong><\/a> to get his divorce from Penelope Wilton. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Celia_Imrie\"><strong>Celia Imrie<\/strong><\/a> has two or three suitors to choose from.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maggie_Smith\"><strong>Dame Maggie Smith<\/strong><\/a> keeps threatening to die after each acerbic remark.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/image-ba6c53d1-1829-4d79-b36f-2ed0c96224ba-e1426306882815.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-645\" src=\"http:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/image-ba6c53d1-1829-4d79-b36f-2ed0c96224ba-e1426306882815.jpg\" alt=\"The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Review\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Among the new faces are <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Gere\"><strong>Richard Gere<\/strong><\/a> (it\u2019s shocking to find him more or less fitting in perfectly with the old crowd) and Tamsin Greig (who\u2019s much better in Showtime\u2019s <em>Episodes<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The first <em>Best<\/em>\u00a0<em>Exotic Marigold Hotel<\/em> was a complete (and well-told) story in and of itself.\u00a0 The second can hardly be &#8220;bad&#8221; with such an amazing cast, but it still feels like a money-grubbing victory lap. <em><strong>\u2013<span class=\"il\">Steve<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Warren<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>RATING:<\/strong> Rated PG for some language and suggestive comments<br \/>\n<strong>GENRE:<\/strong> Comedy-Drama<br \/>\n<strong>DIRECTED BY:<\/strong>\u00a0 John Madden<br \/>\n<strong>WRITTEN BY:<\/strong> Ol Parker<br \/>\n<strong>MAIN CAST:<\/strong> Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Richard Gere<br \/>\n<strong>STUDIO:<\/strong> Fox Searchlight Pictures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning caught in a bottle does not strike twice. &nbsp; Clich\u00e9 though that phrase may be, it\u2019s still better than most of the mangled&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/image-91c485f8-8347-451d-a37c-0b82db517eb6.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5slei-an","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}