The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

“The Dark Knight Rises” is the third and clear final installment of Christopher Nolan’s definitive, genre-defining trilogy of Batman films. It is pure topsy-turvy genius Nolan, an epic urban-war film and rule-bending comic book movie that wraps around and fits like snug fingers into “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” so exactly, it feels as if we have just witnessed the ultimate story arc of a super hero’s life, unlike ever before. No fat. No lose ends. Near perfect. The balance, themes, visuals, and characters expertly played. 

In the first film, a doomed father asks his son, “Why do we learn to fall down?” And the boy, now the Batman, is still answering that question, that we are even still pondering that question is worthy of story-writing accolades. Nolan and his co-writer brother Jonathan have again raised the bar, not just on the super hero film genre, but the entire idea of the summer movie tent pole. I’m looking at you, every Michael Bay film ever made, or even the stellar, popcorn fun (but, in hindsight, flat as a flapjack) “Avengers.” 

Case in point, name another summer flick that tips its hat and quotes from “A Tale of Two Cities.” This does, liberally. Average film fan: Clueless. Nolan: All the happier devil.

The amazing kicker of this finale: Nolan’s best hat-trick of the ultra-dark film franchise, a “Prestige,” if you will, is to introduce a new hero rising from tragedy, pain, and lost trust in leadership. Not evil mass death of the Joker, nor the vigilante violence that haunted Bruce Wayne as Batman. But honest, cautious goodness. Let the fan fiction begin. The final image, before Nolan’s trademark “black screen” sign off, is a literal “Dark Knight Rises.” I saw it coming, months back, sort of. But Nolan defies the script I wrote in my head.

If you have not seen this film, then stop, SPOLIERS abound. And, really, 10 days?

“Rises” opens eight years after the events that closed out “Dark Knight,” with Harvey “Two-Face” Dent (Aaron Eckhart) killed after a deadly rampage that also almost killed the son of Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman). Batman (Christian Bale) remains hated and hunted, taking the millstone of Dent’s sins onto himself. Tones of Christ, anyone?

The Dark Knight’s thinking: Give Gotham (New York, naturally) the hero he thinks it “deserves,” whatever that means, the Boy Scout White Knight that Dent was before he crossed paths with the Joker. As for the Clown Prince, he receives no mention here, with Heath Ledger’s death already hanging over the franchise like a heavy fog. Nolan didn’t want to bring up more scar tissue, so to speak. In the end, it is a smart move.

Back to this drama: Gotham is enjoying an unprecedented drop in crime thanks to a hardcore, no appeal law for criminals handed down in the name of Dent, and the Batman remains vanished. Bruce Wayne also is in hiding, rumored to be crazy or disfigured, similar to Howard Hughes -– an in-joke as Nolan once tried to make a biopic of Hughes before Martin Scorsese beat him to the punch. (Anyone still want to see that movie? I do.)

This is just the start of “Dark Knight,” and we have much to go. A hulking, massive brute of a terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy) is living in the underground of Gotham’s water system, planning an all-out war on the city, with a purpose that strikes close to Occupy Wall Street: Take down the rich establishment, share it all, and destroy the infrastructure. 

(Yes, the film cuts deep into the left, but know that the city’s corrupt law-and-order-at-all-costs tactics, and blatant lying about peace and stripping of Civil Rights mirrors the right-wing’s mantra, including the great lie that this nation was founded on some Christian value. Never generations of racism or the murder of countless Native Americans.) 

Yet, Bane has more in plan, fully indifferent to politics. It all goes back to the first film. Nolan has followed Peter Jackson with his  “LOTR”  Trilogy, and Lucas with his own trilogy. You know the name. It is all that rock solid. (Let me say it here, this film meets our impossible expectations of the trilogy's closing, not excel, but meets. That alone is worthy of endless praise.) Consider the opposite: “The Matrix” trilogy. 

I digress. Mr. Wayne, still heartbroken over the death of Rachel Dawes, injured more in mind than body, is flummoxed by a new woman. She is Selina Kyle (Ann Hathaway), a jewel thief who breaks into Wayne’s personal safe when the manor is full of guests. She discombobulates the man, leaving him first flat on his face, then as the film progress, unable to finish sentences and struck silent. (The film is immensely dark, but also quite funny.) Kyle intrigues Wayne, and is the catalyst to bring him, both of him, out into the light. Indeed, Wayne dons the Batman suit again, but only for short chunks of time. 

This trilogy always has been about Bruce Wayne –- the rich playboy -- as the disguise, after all. The rubber suit, by now, is irrelevant. A tool. The suit, though, must come out because after a stunning set of scenes -- the film is 2 hours 45 minutes, but flies by -- has Bain and his henchmen leading a hands-on assault on Wall Street, and later ups the ante with a full-on attack of the city, centered on a football stadium, but spanning outward to include bridges and various infrastructure. Batman, sure as hell, is needed again.

The finale takes place on the streets and air of Gotham, and again has echoes of “Begins” and “Dark Knight” in certain punches, crashes, and other beats of action cinema. It’s a pulverizing film that had me thinking of 1970s Cold War paranoia films, “The Siege,” or a classic Tom Clancy novel, more than anything found in the libraries of D.C. Comics, and also of 9/11, and terrorism in our day and time. Nolan is going big here, not looking back.

Again, Nolan takes Batman out of the film for well more than half its running time. I’ll hold off on why. If you have seen it, you know why, if you have read the comic books, you know why. It’s a daring step that would make the folks behind “Avengers” or “Iron Man” quake: A superhero with an MIA superhero. Here, it perfectly fits in with what we were told in “Begins,” this is all Bruce, Batman can be anyone, the man behind the mask is irrelevant. The move also takes Batman down several pegs, a fallen boy in an old well.

Back to Gotham where a lone, hotheaded policeman (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of the Nolan-directed “Inception,” which also had Hardy in it) becomes not just the right-hand-man of a sidelined Gordon, but a stand-in for the Dark Knight. Nolan shifts his film to this man, John Blake, also an orphan, as if it were an Olympic relay race. He is the man, the Dark Knight, who Rises in the end, wary of violence, iron-strong structures and also anarchy, and we presume will take on the mask. That his story plays out much like a police thriller (as did “Dark Knight”) is another way Nolan defies expectations. Gordon-Levitt rocks the role.

As with “Prometheus,” the other surprisingly great, against-the-grain summer film, there are errors along the way, mostly the Wall Street attack and its immediate aftermath, which seems to go from day to dusk to darkest night in far too short a frame period, and a questionable gap in how long the Batman remains sidelined, is it the full three months, or five? I’m still uncertain at this point. All are forgiven, easily. One more crack follows.

What is certain: This film, is a huge, bloody marvel (I know, D.C.), but it does not have the drive of Ledger’s Joker sending electric shocks out into the audience. How could it ever have equaled? Ledger’s performance remains legendary, and could never be topped. The scarily muscular Hardy –- a great actor, catch him in “Bronson” -– is playing such a different sort of evil menace, that comparisons are unfair, and irrelevant. (Had Ledger lived, had the Joker returned, would the story be repetitive? Would Bane be here?) 

Bane wears a “Mad Max”-type gas mask that obscures most of his face, and the effect is purposefully off-putting, almost fully repugnant. So we must watch his eyes, blazing with anger and power, and study his body language, how when he lays his hand gently on a man’s shoulder and brings him –- powerful as he is –- down in a second, by sheer intimidation. 

Hardy's chosen voice will remain controversial forever, tones of Darth Vader, mixed with that of an early James Bond villain, many words inaudible. It’s all crazily over-the-top theatrical, but as Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul taught Wayne in the first installment, that’s how you intimidate. Nolan is playing by the rules off screen that he lays out on screen. (Amazing how many people miss that. And, yes, Neeson appears here, but not how I expected. ) 

The film has a legion of detractors, those who hate how Nolan has mangled and morphed the Batman history and legend, to his own will, and his (undeniable) epic arc, but, again, as with “Inception,” people cannot stop talking about this movie. That’s power, for Nolan, as Ra’s al Ghul would indicate. (And that is art, too.)  

Let’s not forget just how good Bale is here, how permanently hurt and old he appears. As in the first film, Nolan and company are not afraid to show a hero making mistakes and truly getting in over his head. Case in point, despite his mantra to “fight harder,” look at the shock on Bale as Batman’s face, when he first fights Bane. It’s one for the books. Not a heroic rebel yell, but a look of sheer, absolute, “Oh, shit,” fear. Somehow fans hate that. Why? It is real.

Now, that penultimate scene, with Alfred in the Italian café, looking up, to see his life’s hope. I wish it were the very final image, not the Rising scene, and I wish Nolan didn’t show what Alfred sees, instead leaving us hanging and spinning like Cobb’s top. Cain staring out from the screen. Cut to black. Seeing those faces confirmed, it kills the drama before it. At the last moment, an over-reach that drives me mad. Debate onward...

I already have burned through too many words here, and I still have yet addressed the women of this trilogy, and the way Hathaway as “Catwoman” (the name is never mentioned, thank the film gods) turns not just Batman’s brain upside down. Nor have I touched on Wally Pfister’s endlessly fascinating cinematography, never better than the scenes where Batman fights Bain in the low, dark sewers. Hans Zimmer’s score thunders as if he were scoring a deadly serious take on “Clash of Titans,” or another story of gods at war. Every technical mark is just struck dead-on target, besting all before it. (O.K., wait, nothing beats Ledger’s  tractor trailer crash in downtown Chicago.)

“Rises” has that much going on. That many plates. Nolan barely drops a fork. I’m writing this and thinking of a third trip back to the Batcave. To discover more that I missed, re-watch the finale. That’s what movies are all about, are they not? If only that one tiny scene had been cut short, leaving us wide open, rising, in mystery, shock, wonder, and in applause. That's what I wanted. It is the sole reason -- OK< no, I still hate that time jump Wall Street attach to pieces, bad move all around -- this doesn't get a solid “A” score. A-

Bernie (2012)

The greatest indicator the rhythm is off in “Bernie,” a dark comedy about a real-life murder that rocked a Texas town 15 years ago, comes when a playground set is seized during a criminal investigation. The audience, in unison, let out a heartfelt, “awww” as two young girls watched their backyard kingdom be torn down by police. Outside of laughter at the people and hijinks on screen, it was the only other sign of human emotion I heard or felt. 

That’s how thin “Bernie” is. The film. Not the man. Bernie Tiede, is quite thick in the belly, as played by Jack Black, and as seen in real-life photos and video during the closing credits. 

Tiede was an assistant funeral home director during the 1990s in tiny Carthage, Texas, (even the name is ironic). Clearly gay in his every manner, Tiede became a local celebrity, a mascot if you will, to the good ol’ GOP-voting Christian folk there. Not just for his artistry of making the dead look good, but in his endless dedication to church, the local theater, baseball clubs, and his undying loyalty to the town’s widows. He even came to befriend the town’s one Ms. Scrooge (Shirley MacLaine), a vile control freak badger, set off her leash after the death of her wealthy husband. This is where the thrust of the film kicks in. She became Tiede’s Sugar Momma, he her Errand Boy. Things got ugly, and Tiede shot her. Four times. The town stood strong: Behind Bernie. Old lady? Fuggedaboudit.

Shocking? Yes. But Richard Linklater, directing and co-writing, would rather laugh at the wild audacity of it all, and edits in interviews with real-life locals to the mix, showing the town as mentally lost as Tiede is in the “movie” portion. The tone is so broadly farcical nothing sticks. With Black’s eternal wink-wink personality and mincing gay lisp, I never grasped whether or not trapped-in the-closet Tiede was sincere and full of love, or playing people, full of rage, or some place between. Wearing a mask if you will, to go all Batman here. 

Person after person in those interviews dismiss Tiede as “queer,” or insists “he can’t be gay,” he’s too nice and decent. Surely he heard that awful talk, surely it hurt, and made him mad. Or did it? Did he bury his pain. We don’t know. As portrayed, Tiede has all the depth of Ziggy, to bring up another roundish guy. 

More so, there’s a strong, unpleasant whiff that Linklater, a Texan himself, is pulling a nasty fast-one on those interviewees, inviting them friendly-like to talk on camera and then editing their words to appear as rubes and hicks, or borderline senile. Were these people misled? I'd sure as hell would think, “Yes.”

“Fargo,” a far more dark comic tale of murder, had infinitely more emotion, and it’s fictional. The comparison is silly, that film is so sickly brilliant, and brilliant, but I shall not digress. In this tale, an old lady died, for real, and we get nothing. There’s no sense of loss here, mixed in with the comedy. Any sense of irony is lost. MacLaine, dropping a racist tirade as the old lady, makes it all too easy. Too neat. Ehhh.

Matthew McConaughey -- God bless him, is he becoming a character actor now, no more rom-coms? -- lifts the film as high as he can as a self-righteous, but right nonetheless, ADA who is dismayed at the turn of events. Yes, he’s also spinning comedy gold, but he’s also the only one asking, how would you react? Bernie, or the lady? C+

Contraband (2012)

Mark Wahlberg headlines “Contraband,” a gritty tale of a smuggler turned legit family man and business owner. The movie opens on a cargo ship as two guys dump a 10-pound bag of coke in the drink during a police raid. Big mistake. The drug bosses (headed by Giovanni Ribisi, looking gaunt and wicked) want $700,000, or else. So back Wahlberg goes to the smuggling biz as one of the dopes –- the other now dead -– is his brother-in-law, and blood is blood. Kate Beckinsale is the wife, Ben Foster the best pal. Director Baltasar Kormákur keeps tense twists and shockers coming, and his climax goes against the grain of every standard revenge flick. It’s smart. Bloody. Violent. And funny as hell as during his complicated, miserable trip to Panama City, Wahlberg’s back-in-the-saddle smuggler comes across a Jackson Pollack, a massive fortune which everyone else mistakes for a drop cloth. Wahlberg is the stalwart hero, but it's both Ribisi and Foster who give the film its hot, dark pulse, the former carrying on business as his daughter watches. B+

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Conan the Barbarian has it rough in “Conan the Barbarian,” the new remake of the 1982 blockbuster. Toward the end of this sword-and-sandals tale, Conan sneaks into a castle, crawls through rancid water, and fights several large goons and a giant octopus thingy. All to rescue a Damsel In Distress. When Conan finally arrives at the castle’s keep, he realizes the bad guys have left with the DID. Oops. Poor guy never has it easy: The first scene has Conan as a fetus (!) dodging a sword. Really. This is fodder for hilarious, self-aware kitsch a la “Flash Gordon,” but it’s just loud and dumb, with a murky climax that must have been unwatchable in 3D. TV actor Jason Momoa takes over the lead from Arnold Schwarzenegger, a harsh task, and he can’t sell lines like, “I live, I love, I slay, and I am content.” Maybe no one outside of Monty Python could spin that junk. Rose McGowan plays a witch, maybe bonking evil daddy, and well knows she’s in an unintended satire. No one else does. Morgan Freeman narrates for no clear reason. Hope he got paid well. C-

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Ten minutes into “Moonrise Kingdom,” I realized I had my fill of Wes Anderson, the Gen X darling filmmaker who tells tales of quirky hipsters and outsiders using ironic air quotes peppered with hip art deco sets and hip costumes. I’m sick of all of Anderson’s hipness. The guy aims and fails for some aura of New Wave French film with a story about pre-teen love birds (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) on the run from parents, police, and Khaki Scout Troop leaders in 1960s New England. To woo youngsters, Anderson tosses in fires, floods, storms, impaled dogs, and so much forced acting from famous actors (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, and Edward Norton among them), that it all feels like the over-the-top high school play that closed out “Rushmore,” a damn fine film. Yes, Jason Schwartzman appears. So does Bob Balaban as a narrator who changes camera lights. The obnoxious music score almost drowns out the realization that the central arc of Hayward as a beauty hip (again!) to Euro culture falling for a sad nerd is bullshit. Anderson’s kingdom of cool -– I loved “Fantastic Mr. Fox” -- has gone tepid. I’m out. C-

Prometheus (2012)

The must re-watch shocking, amazing, perplexing, fascinating film of the summer, maybe the year. “Prometheus” is not exactly an “Alien” prequel, but a smarter, darker great-grandparent to such a prequel, fueled with curiosity of beginnings and origins, but not just of the classic 1979 sci-fi horror film that set off a new genre and exploded my young mind, but where all life began. The questions and the answers here, as in life, vex more than soothe and settle, and I’d settle for nothing less. Weeks out, I still obsess about this entry.

“Alien” – for all its glorious cinematic blood and guts, big hidden ideas and woman as warrior hero/savior of a kitty, was sort of like “Jaws in Space,” a monster film. A  brilliant one, no less. With exploding-from-the-inside chests and a real Paranoid Android, thank you, Thom Yorke. I love that film, endlessly. This is far deeper, and comes from not just the mind of original director Ridley Scott, but co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof, the man behind the question-baiting, answer-withholding enigma-within-a-puzzle “Lost,” an absolute favorite TV show, and I don’t watch much TV shows.

All this in a summer flick, I love it. I digress. 

To the film: Despite the million bitch-and-moan reviews you see everywhere, those pointing out scenes don’t match up, we’re not even on the same planet -- LV-426 -- that Ripley et al landed on in our 1979, the movie’s 2122. Instead, here, much of the action takes place in the year 2093, on a moon dubbed LV-223, and believed to be the exact spot of the creation of humankind, all the universe, or so a series of ancient cave paintings tell two scientists, one a Christian named Shaw (Noomi Rapace of the European “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy) and the other an agnostic hard-ass named Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green of “Devil”). The two brains become the center of a $1 trillion, multi-year mission to find the planet, and meet our makers, God, or –- so dubbed here –- The Engineers. (Go engineers!)

Yes, things go bad soon after touchdown and a non-human, but definitely hand-built massive structure, is explored, and bodies are ripped apart, stomachs opened, and -– in one nasty scene -– a worm crawls out of a person’s eyeball. (I refuse to give any spoilers, so I’m being as vague as possible here, but think this: Worst science class field trip ever.) But this isn’t a B-horror movie, it’s Scott’s bid to give us a pre-telling of not just “Alien,” but possibly “2001: A Space Odyssey,” every great science fiction film ever made, including “Blade Runner,” and our own lives. Connections to the 1979 flick are ... on your own to figure out, off screen, before or after this action.

“Alien” is just one child of this movie, this story, this Father. So many more films are wide open to explore, even those closer to home than anything in the films we all know and love, save Parts 3 and 4, and anything with “Predator” in the title. To wit: Dig the opening scene in which a massive, ivory-colored being drinks a strange, harsh potion atop a massive waterfall, and immediately starts to literally crumble. From the inside out. A disc, flat then tall, hovers above. He falls, splashes dead into the water, and his decaying cells are reborn in the water into new live, and we can flash guess from the next jump to Scotland, we just saw the birth of humans on Earth. All us.

In a summer flick. (Have I mentioned that before? Call me smitten.)

It’s not a perfect film, too many of the scientists, engineers, doctors and brainiacs aboard the ship must act foolish in order to meet their end, and a late-in-the-game self-surgery procedure (the film’s biggest talk-about-it scene that will live on infamy and YouTube clips for decades) would lay a person flat for a week, but the wildly resilient character bounces back far too quickly. (Note: The person ingests and injects enough drugs to kill every member of Guns N’ Roses, so the script leaves wiggle room on that point. Almost.) 

But damn the nitpicks, I loved it all, from the sound design, the vast sets of the human space craft (the ironic title of the film is its name) to the caverns of the alien temples and spacecraft, and Michael Fassbender’s David, an android with no outward feelings or emotion, but all too aware that as his creators -– mankind -- are all capable of being flawed, hopeless, hopeful, beautiful, addictive, messy, psychotic, murderous, and kind, why cannot man’s Creator also be that. Scott even plays off of Fassbender’s godly good-looks and stranger-among-strangers post as David obsessively watches and mimics Peter O’Toole’s performance in “Lawrence of Arabia.” Even the 3D version rocks, including the surgery scene, and the eyeball, quite effective. Also, will someone please nominate Fassbender for an Oscar already, the man from “Shame" near owns this epic tale.

This “prequel’ is no “Thing 2011” rehash -– that’s the worst this film could be –- Scott is shooting for the heavens, the stars, and beyond, and that’s something to celebrate during a summer of caped hero movies and Adam Sandler comedies. Let the uncut, full, master version of Scott’s vision come quick. God may be in the details. Imperfections and all, this is my kind of summer flick. Bravo to all. A  

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

The Grey (2012)

Bloody good, “The Grey” pits Liam Neeson against the arctic tundra and a pack of man-eating wolves, their eyes glowing hellfire. This is a Jack London fable, crossed with the grisliest of survival tales and pumped with dark adrenaline and overt symbolism. Neeson is Ottway, a soul-broken sniper for an oil company in northern Alaska who finds redemption and more in the face of death. At the film’s start Ottway attempts suicide. He falters. The next day he’s on an airplane, maybe heading home to quit, we do not know, but the craft goes down, killing dozens, save six men and Ottway. It’s in the wild that our man finds the courage to not die, and to lead his men (including Dermot Mulroney) to safety and life. Nature, the wolves, death, and chance stalk all the way. Neeson – hardcore, of few words -- gives the best performance he’s dealt since “Schindler’s List,” and director Joe Carnahan pulls out of his dumb dive (“A-Team”) to return to real storytelling on film. Stay after the credits for a final shot that will fuel debate in some, and leave others assured of fate and faith. A-

Signs (2002)

I loved M. Night Shyamalan’s box-office-smash ghost story “Sixth Sense,” and dug the under-appreciated bleak superhero thinker “Unbreakable.” For me, sky was the limit for Shyamalan when his alien-invasion flick “Signs” hit cinemas. I was stoked. Then I saw it. Sky fell. Hard and fast, and has never risen again. This is a painful, awkward, insulting film to sit through, the absolute symbol of bad cinema to me. Not just when Shyamalan unleashes his trademark “gotchya!” shocker when a legion of world-invading aliens turn out to be allergic to water (!) on a planet full of water, but the whole damn dull story of a faithless priest (Mel Gibson) living with his young children and faithless baseball player brother (Joaquin Phoenix, young enough to be Gibson’s son). Hours drag by as the titular crop circles appear, the plot is set for the green visitors to arrive, and then the climax comes and a glass of H2O and a Louisville slugger are the weapons of choice. Ridiculous. This is the moment where a star filmmaker turned incredulous hack, when Shyamalan screamed aloud, “They’ll love it,” and no one said, “No.” He’s never recovered. F

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

Comedy-drama “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” follows seven derailed-by-life Brits who leave Queen and Country for Jaipur, India, and promises of a sunny paradise resort for “the old and beautiful.” What they get is a barely-functioning pile of bricks and mortar, geese in rooms, and a bouncy 20-ish manager (Dev Patel) who pops off witticisms such as, “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end.” Film-geek goose bumps boom at the cast: Maggie Smith as a racist grouch, Judi Dench as a broke widow, Tom Wilkinson as a judge on a quest, and Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton re-playing husband and wife as they did in “Shaun of the Dead.” Nothing as exciting as zombies here. We get stories of redemption, new love, and prejudices and xenophobia laid to rest, or revealed. All is alright in the end. Every Brit actor is naturally top notch, but Patel pulls a muscle to compete with his costars as the script has him running “Slumdog” style for his lady love. Nothing as exciting as that here either. My parents would love this film. B