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I fell off the Wes
Anderson Wagon years back. I loathed “Moonrise Kingdom,” having OD’d on his
hipster bullshit. Now comes “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and I’m back on board.
Maybe because this WWII-ish (that is, everything here is fictional and with
faux names) flick is pure caper, a 1940s-type adventure that plays like Tin-Tin
for adults, but with a sharp political edge on violence and the act of needing
a passport to travel our great world. But it never preaches. It’s a raunchy,
clever comedy. Ralph Fiennes (seriously funny and edgy) is Gustave, the
manager of the hotel of the title who obsesses every whim of his rich guests and
happily screws old ladies. When one (Tilda Swinton in makeup) croaks, Gustave
gets the blame. I won’t dish another word. Watch the story jump three hoops via
flashbacks and rocket forward, with the required Bill Murray cameo, Willem
Dafoe as a scar-faced killer, and a prison break better than the “Shawshank
Redemption.” Anderson thankfully is no longer out to impress us with just how
far out he can make a French movie reference, but is having pure, high fun. And
it works. A-
Peter Jackson pushes
on his with his uber-epic 9-hour adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”
with “The Desolation of Smaug,” a near-three hour action epic that -– behold,
wonders –- improves from last year’s “An Unexpected Journey.” That film played
crazy indulgent as it OD’d on “Lord of the Rings” nostalgia (Frodo checks the mailbox!) and eye-roll flashbacks. Here we again follow young Hobbit Bilbo (Martin Freeman) now in
the middle of his adventure helping 13 dwarves recapture their mountain
home from the monstrous dragon Smaug. (Smaug is voiced by Benedict
Cumberbatch, making this a love-fest for BBC’s “Sherlock,” where Freeman is
Watson to Cumberbatch’s Holmes.) Jackson and his team ramp up the action and add new material including a Errol Flynn-era Robin Hood-like female elf,
played by Evangeline Lilly of “Lost.” Despite past grumblings of Jackson
re-working Tolkien, this addition is welcome. I can’t recall a single female in
the “Hobbit.” This middle chapter still is too long, far too “LotR” obsessed, and I still couldn’t care if most of the dwarves died by dragon fire, but Freeman carries it. He dazzles strong with physical comedy that could stand
beside Chaplin. B
