The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The older I get, the more that movies like 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" strike a nerve in my view of my own mortality, and how I will graze in my golden years.

Take 7 subjects from the UK (of various economic means in their retirement years), and drop them in India, where they were sold on a promise of a retirement home situation where they would live out their lives in relative comfort.

Of course, the group gets to their destination, and it's sort of a dump, run by an enterprising young man (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire), and the group has to re-acclimate themselves to their new environment, and discover things about themselves they did not quite know, or were too afraid to face.

The cast is quite good, starting with Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, and others. The direction is also pretty good, coming from John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). And the pacing of the script is also solid. How much you invest yourself in these character probably has to do with your age bracket, as there are subplots that hit home, and others aren't as interesting.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

Men in Black 3

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return for the 3rd installment of the Men in Black franchise. They bring along Josh Brolin, who plays the younger K character when J has to go back in time to save older K. Brolin does a spot-on K impersonation in his younger years.

The film isn't as busy as the first one was, and I didn't much like the 2nd one, and it has a decent storyline, but the villain is too one-note and un-interesting. It did feel like Will Smith was over-acting at times, maybe that's the J character, but it's been a while since I saw either of 2 MIB films, so maybe I'm just not as forgiving of his portrayal.

And if this was the last MIB film, it managed to tie up most of the loose ends.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

Battleship

Believe it or not, I was rather entertained by "Battleship". They did a good job building up Taylor Kitsche's character (somewhat street smart slacker who gets a second wind in the Navy, only to have his stubbornness threatening to sink his own Navy career until the aliens show up and he has to lead and show his grit). This is very much like a Michael Bay summer blockbuster, but with heart and an outlook that everyone can make a difference, regardless of perceived limitations.

All I can say, even with the trappings of the Battleship game (the aliens' artillery looking like Battleship pegs), and later the game grid comes into play rather nearly, it was a fun movie to root for the humans in spite of overwhelming odds and firepower.

I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.

Dark Shadows

This film was rather a chore to sit through, I almost left in the middle of it, hoping it would gain some traction and my interest, but it did not, and the conclusion was nothing that I haven't seen before in terms of spurned supernatural love. There just wasn't enough of a hook or storyline that elevated this to a film worthy of its budget. Definitely a miss for Depp and Burton, who are probably batting .500 at best for me now.

I give it 1.75 stars, or a grade of C-.

The Dictator

"The Dictator" is the type of film that writes itself, and it's more about restraint that determines if the movie works as a whole, instead of a lot of set-up/punchline scenes.  I think it's funnier in small bits, than as a good storyline (dictator goes to the US, and gets doubled-cross by his inner circle and has to roam the streets of NYC figuring it out, but through decades of being catered to for his neediest whims).

I don't think it's as hilariously funny as Borat, and there are some scenes that are really crudely drawn to showcase this dictator's despotic tendencies with his enemies in his region of the world.  But you pretty know what you'l get with a Sacha Baron Cohen film, and while not quite a home run, it's a good stand-up double. 

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

The Avengers

Having seen most of Joss Whedon's TV and film output (all of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, as well as Serenity), I'm pretty familiar with Whedon's quippy dialogue cadence, and his dramatic storytelling tropes, so as populist entertainment, "The Avengers" succeeds as a 140-minute thrilling roller-coaster ride for the comic book nerds, while also being accessible to the general public. In fact, it's almost a love letter to comic book nerds in how the plot unfolds, and produces match-ups between the heroes in a way to vetting one another before they are tasked with the avenging in an effort to protect Earth from being subjugated by a Loki-led army for a would-be alien conqueror (Annihilus/the Other?), as Loki hunts down the Tesseract (the Cosmic Cube that is being studied as a plentiful, clean energy source referenced from the previous "Thor" film).

I found some of the fight action to be influenced heavily by WWE, but still immensely fun and entertaining. The tough part of the script was juggling so many characters, and still finding ways for each character to shine, and Whedon's script does a good job in that respect, while still maintaining good pacing overall. Even when there were spots where the story could have bogged down, we get some nice bits of dialogue that diffuses the tension with laughs. The characters are shown to know of the weaknesses and foibles of one another, but still find enough common ground to coalesce into working in a ad hoc team environment as the threats to mankind's future survival continue to manifest themselves.

The film succeeds in giving the audience what it wants, but it's not a sophisticated piece of storytelling in terms of plot structure, and a lot of the second unit action rates a tad below what a James Cameron would produce, but the action is so fast and furious, you don't have a lot of time to dwell on the minor shortcomings of spatial dynamics in how the action sequences develop. The action scenes have somewhat of a Michael Bay quality to them, but with better purpose in serving the story, and providing some dramatic tension in the final act of the film with the heroes scrambling to stem the tide of a flying army coming through the inter-spatial portal, thanks to Loki's actions.

The film's script is loaded with nuggets of character interactions which produce laughs and the fight action produced cheers and shock (in the vein of "Whoa! Did you just see that? Dayum..." The film gains momentum through its running time, though the opening act was good at setting the table, but I wasn't quite feeling it until the early middle of the film, and the film concludes well in providing plenty of menace and mayhem, and also finding small ways to address thread of character development.

You will be entertained by this film, no "ands, ifs or buts" about it. On that level, it hits the mark. I did see it in 3D, but I don't think it really adds much to its overall presentation, so seeing in in 2D should suffice if you aren't crazy about 3D anyhow.

I give it 3.5 stars, or a grade of B+ (will take in another viewing, but on IMAX, as my comic book friends want to see it on IMAX the next time just for all the fight scenes).

P.S., yes, stay for 2 additional scenes in the end credits, one comes right after the spotlighted actor credits, and the other one (so hilariously on-point) comes at the very end of the credits.

The 5-Year Engagement

I think this film gets off to a somewhat funny start with its cast, but along the way, the film's running time feels like 5 years, and it just went on and on, and the middle section of the film really sags. Segal's writing buddy, Nicholas Stoller directed this film, and his direction is nothing special, but he really gets up close at times, so close you could see the peach fuzz on Emily Blunt's face in one scene due to the lighting and angle of her face. There are bits of comedy that work, but it gets dragged down by many of the other scenes that languish on the screen, and bored this viewer.

I give it 2.5 star, or a grade of C+.