‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ is second-rate: 2 stars

Ideally, a sequel gets made because there’s more to explore in the story or characters.

Most often, though, the sole motive is money.

And you can hear the spare change clanking incessantly beneath the dialogue of “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

The first film was a sleeper hit, thanks to its stellar British cast (Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Judi Dench), the exotic Indian setting, and its amusing blend of expatriate adventure and cheeky septuagenarian sexuality.

It never added up to much, but it went down easily, especially with the gray-haired crowd that rarely gets to see itself portrayed with any sort of dignity on the big screen.

But though this follow-up was made by the same people — director John Madden, screenwriter Ol Parker and the returning players — all the charm seems to have evaporated. It’s a paint-by-numbers effort.

The screenplay gives each of the retired residents of the Marigold Hotel in Jaipur a crisis to overcome — usually a romantic one. Contrasting against those late-life liaisons are the impending nuptials of young hotel operator Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) and his beloved Sunaina (Tina Desai).

Fortune hunter Madge (Celia Imrie) has two well-heeled Indian gentlemen on tap but can’t decide which one to marry. Nighy’s Douglas is smitten with Dench’s Evelyn, but he’s too shy to jump, and she won’t commit.

Bon vivant Norman (Ronald Pickup) fears that he has inadvertently put out a mob hit on his girlfriend, Carol (Diana Hardcastle).

Muriel (Maggie Smith) grumpily lectures Americans on how to make tea and quietly nurses her concerns when a medical checkup doesn’t go as planned.

These subplots circle a larger story. Sonny is desperate to expand his franchise by buying a nearby rundown hotel (thus the film’s title). He approaches an American financier (David Strathairn) about backing the effort, and he’s pretty sure that the white-haired American gent (Richard Gere) who checks into the Marigold is an undercover agent sent to scope out the operation and make a recommendation.

Sonny is so determined to make a success of things that he pretty much throws his widowed mother (Lillete Dubey) at the Yank. As seems always to be the case in this humid part of the world, love/lust almost instantly takes root.

None of this is even mildly compelling. “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is workmanlike — it looks great, and the veteran players do their best to make it seem effortless — but there’s no spark, no soul.

Even Patel’s goofy Sonny is less amusing than irritating this time around.

At least the film ends with a big Bollywood song-and-dance number. But it’s too little too late for all but the most die-hard fans of the original.

This story was originally published March 5, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ is second-rate: 2 stars."