Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is an impersonal yet fun vision of a sinister point in 20th century European history. Set between World War I and II in a fictional country at a mountain resort hotel, the story focuses on the friendship between a lobby boy and an eccentric concierge who is the murder suspect of an elderly countess.
Ralph Fiennes plays the concierge to a whimsical perfection and Tony Revolori plays the lobby boy with the deadpan straight-faced nature required of most Anderson characters. They spend a good amount of the film on the run with a police inspector (Edward Norton) and a hired killer (Willem Dafoe) on their tail. There are undertones of fascism spreading through Europe and the looming threat of war. Anderson’s miniature effects and storybook aesthetic help to lighten an ill-fated part of the world, but he throws in moments of horror here and there.
Did anyone see that SNL short a few months back when they spoofed Wes Anderson and everything predictable about his style? It was pretty amazing. Spoofing a director’s work is like doing an impression of a celebrity. It’s a statement about what we’ve learned to expect from them, whether we like them or not.
Wes Anderson is to art house cinema what Michael Bay is to action movies. You can interpret that statement however you like. From Anderson, I have learned to expect all style and some substance. I’ve always found his style to be unique and amusing. It’s his substance more often than not which bores me. The guy is great at setup but weak at payoff. Every one of his films, with exception of his best, “Moonrise Kingdom,” get to a point during the final act where I find myself yawning.
Starting with “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I’ve been pleased with Anderson’s choice to change up his movies a bit, and I’m pretty sure that “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is his best-looking film. The choice to shoot in the classic “Academy” square-shaped aspect ratio works wonderfully with the scenery. I wish that more directors would attempt to reuse this format when the material calls for composition of this kind.
As always, the cast is huge, but the film is thankfully focused on its main characters. I still find Anderson’s need for quirky details to be more distracting that entertaining. When I first saw in the film’s trailer that Saoirse Rohan has a birthmark on her face in the shape of Mexico, I groaned. Maybe someone will think it’s funny. Not me. I think it’s just stupid.
Speaking of quirky, stylized movies set in Europe and riddled with celebrity cameos, I also saw “Muppets Most Wanted.” What can I say? The movie has an opening musical number calling out the fact that most sequels aren’t as good. This movie isn’t as good as the 2011 Jason Segel passion project “The Muppets,” but with the continued direction of James Bobin (“Flight of the Concords”) and Segel’s writing partner from the last film, Nicholas Stoller (“Get Him to the Greek”), it still has some big laughs.
The problem is that it has too much of everything. The cameos are prevalent to the point that every time a human face is onscreen, you may wonder where you’ve seen them before, and yet they have very little to do. Some of the Bret McKenzie’s musical numbers are really good, but there are one too many of them. Even at 107 minutes, the movie feels too long for what it is. This may be a problem for impatient kids, who I cynically believe are too over-stimulated by today’s entertainment to get much out of the puppet entertainment I loved as a child.
The endearing characteristics of The Muppets still exist. The sense of humor and heart is there, even if it’s hard to capture what Jim Henson gave them. This movie finds inspiration from the jewel thief plot of 1981’s “The Great Muppet Caper,” involving adventure abroad, sinister bad guys and Muppets behind bars. I was generally entertained by it, but I was done with it before the final act.
I wasn’t perfectly entertained by either of these movies, but they’re both admirably ambitious. Even though one of them has an R rating, I feel like they’re both whimsical adventures with magical imagery aimed at the kid inside us.
Bennett Duckworth is a film fanatic who lives in Louisville and goes to see a movie in the theater at least once a week. He has kept a movie review blog since September of 2011 with the mission of writing about every new release he sees, as well as new trends in filmmaking and classic films he loves. You can read more of his reviews at www.bennettduckworth.blogspot.com.