Review of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by Sameer K — 24 Feb 2015

Extremely disappointing Wes Anderson effort. This movie could never decide what it wanted to be. Was it a quirky independent film? A slapstick comedy? A vulgar satire? All of the above? None of the above? The quirkiness really detracted from the comedy, taking what should have been comedic elements and making them into head-scratchers.

The film's production design was beautiful. But the script was downright terrible. It was all over the place and failed to entertain. And the acting? Awful. Why did all the characters speak in 21st century American vernacular? Why did most of the characters speak with American accents? If we're to believe that the story is being told by the author character, then the characters should all speak British vernacular with British accents, since both Jude Law and Tom Wilkinson had British accents. Overall: Visually beautiful, but utterly unengaging.