GordJackson

"Danger Diabolik" is lot of comic-book hokum definitely NOT for the younger set. A stylish, kaleidoscopic mixture of ridiculous characters, garish sets, inventive action and one-dimensional acting, it's the ultimate guilty pleasure - 'high kitsch', ladled on with a trowel, as the gift that keeps on giving with each subsequent viewing.

A psychedelic trip into the amoral sixties, it features John Phillip Law as master criminal Diabolik, a kind of James Bond-gone-rogue who must have anything he wants, any and all costs be damned!

For some, the moral and ethical consequences of the mayhem may be troubling. That I can fully understand as I'm not exactly grabbed by them myself. But counter- balancing those concerns, what really carries this silly flight-of-fantasy is the same thing that carried the "Batman" television series - it's overall tongue-in-cheek sense of the ridiculous. The violence may be a little more realistic, Diabolik and his partner-in-crime Eva Kant (Marisa Mell) more likable than the The Joker, Catwoman, The Penguin or Bloefeld from the early Bond films, but the means by which they achieve their ends are little different. It's just that director Mario Bava has managed to have us almost (in spite of ourselves) rooting for them.

Backed by a magnificently appropriate score by Ennio Morricone, "Danger Diabolik" is fast paced entertainment of the most supercilious kind, a ton of fun that everyone plays straight-from-the-shoulder.

I couldn't have enjoyed it more!

First off, I should know better than to buy a film I have never seen. But on the strength of the original "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and the return not only of most of its stellar cast but also of its writer and director, I figured, what could possibly go wrong? Sadly, the answer is 'far too much.'

There are far too many subplots, most especially the ones involving Richard Gere, Tamsin Greig and David Strathairn, and a notable lack of chemistry between newcomer Gere and on-screen love interest, the returning Lillete Dubey. Worse still, the focus is less on the struggles and triumphs of the residents and far too much on the silliness of Marigold's owner/manager Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel). In the first one you felt 'Mummy G Kapoor' (Dubey) was little more than a class- conscious ogre, insensitive and uncaring about the hopes, dreams, aspirations and above all, the potential of her ambitious son. In this one she gets near-redemption as the kid comes across as a composite of the three stooges all rolled into one. And don't get me started on the way he talks back to his mother - and gets away with it.

Certainly the Bollywood dancing is fun, the cinematography ravishing and the acting from a uniformly excellent cast top drawer. But the whole enterprise is undermined by excessive length on the one hand and its sound-bite style approach to character development on the other.

If you have fond memories of your first visit to this hotel, savour them. Don't spoil them by checking in for a second time.