Review: Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

It's safe to assume that any filmmaker with a recognizable stamp on their work is going to have both avid fans who connect with the way they tell stories and vehement detractors who don't. For Wes Anderson, the man behind Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore, each new film seems to widen that gap between the extremes, and it's easy to understand why. As someone who enjoys all of Anderson's work, even I would agree that his films are becoming more elaborate and his style more pronounced.

His latest feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is the delightfully manic tale of a hotel concierge who is framed for murder. Of course, nothing that simple could adequately explain the plot of a Wes Anderson picture, or its cast of characters and caricatures, so we begin in 1985, as a writer (Tom Wilkinson) is recording an interview about his book, "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Insisting that the book is based on real events, the writer begins to recall how, in 1968, his younger self (Jude Law) was regaled by the story, which came directly from the hotel proprietor, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). While we spend very little time in 1985 -- a section whose purpose will only come into focus at the very end of the movie -- the 1968 portion lovingly lingers, and is periodically returned to throughout the picture. Law and Abraham have an easy chemistry, and Jason Schwartzman, an Anderson regular since he made his debut in Rushmore, shows up for a spell in this section also.

Review: "Robocop (2014)"

Anytime a filmmaker sets out to reboot a franchise, it's an uphill battle, and they must be willing to accept a healthy amount of skepticism from fans of the original. In the case of the new Robocop, director José Padilha (Elite Squad) isn't simply battling the overall quality of the 1987 Paul Verhoeven film, he's also contending with the biting social commentary and ultra-violence that made it an instant classic. Unfortunately for Padilha, the PG-13 rating that the studio wanted, and he agreed to deliver, automatically put him into a big hole with many fans, one that would be difficult for any filmmaker to climb out of.

Now, I enjoy a well-made, super-violent action picture as much as the next guy (or girl), but I reject the assertion that Robocop needs to be R-rated to be good. At its core, Robocop is the story of a half-man, half-cyborg who fights crime and battles big robots. That sounds cool. That sounds FUN. The thirteen-year old in me wants to see that movie, and there's no reason why the right filmmaker couldn't take that basic concept and turn it into an entertaining movie that reaches a wider audience.

Review: "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit"

There is a very good sequence in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, that begins with a fight in a hotel room, continues with a frantic phone call, and ends with two men on a park bench making sense of the events. At the end of that sequence, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine), a CIA analyst with serious back problems and very little field training, is handed a gun and upgraded to "operational." In that moment, Paramount Pictures effectively reboots the character as an action hero who shoots and punches his way to victory.

Now, I'm a complete sucker for secret agent movies, but in a post-9/11 world -- a fact unnecessarily emphasized in the very first scene -- where films like Zero Dark Thirty and Showtime's original series Homeland have proven that audiences still crave intelligent espionage stories, it seems silly to roll with the Bonds and the Bournes of the movie world, especially when you have a character who has always been distinguished by his intelligence. But, that's their hook. Like it or not.

Review: "Last Vegas"

After a spur of the moment proposal that took even him by surprise, perpetual playboy Billy (Michael Douglas) is finally getting hitched to a woman less than half his age. Aiming for a quick and simple ceremony in Vegas, he gathers his three best childhood friends for a little bachelor party fun in Sin City.

Archie (Morgan Freeman) has recently recovered from a stroke and feels suffocated by the oversight of his protective pill-doling son, while Sam (Kevin Kline, where have you been?) is withering away in retirement community hell. Both are excited at the prospect of getting away from their lives for a few days, and are each aiming for a different type of enjoyment. Paddy (Robert De Niro), on the other hand, is cocooned up in his Brooklyn apartment, with no desire to frolic like a teenager any longer. A recent widower, Paddy is still bitter over the loss of his wife and very angry at Billy for not showing up for her funeral.

Once in Vegas, they meet Diana (Mary Steenburgen, striking even at 60), a divorced empty-nester trying to make it as a lounge singer. Right away, it's clear that both Paddy and Billy are taken with her, and she could easily be just the thing Paddy needs to get back to living, or perhaps, the first woman of his own age that Billy could have a relationship with. Either way, she could be the thing to tear them apart forever. Meanwhile, Archie is busy winning enough money at blackjack to get the boys a free suite for the weekend, and Sam -- little blue pill burning a hole in his pocket -- mistakenly hits on the cross-dressing Madonna-lookalike Maurice (Roger Bart), while trying to get laid.

The rest of the movie goes pretty much the way you would expect -- lots of old age jokes turn into "old school" cool by the end as these guys work out their differences and rule the Vegas strip like men half their age. I laughed a good bit, but felt that the humor was better punctuated in the trailers than played out in the film. Performances are solid, but it's disappointing that there are no surprises here. Beat for beat, director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) knows what the audience expects, and for better or worse, delivers it every scene. This is harmless fun, but not the sort of material that befits the abilities of such heavy-hitters.