The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014

Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Inquirer: I like Anderson when he's making movies about childhood -- "Rushmore," or "Fantastic Mr. Fox" -- but when he ventures into the realm of adulthood, he seems out of his jurisdiction. Read more

Alex Pappademas, Grantland: In its own silly, artificial way, it's the first Anderson film to acknowledge the existence of a world outside its own little toy box and to ground its characters' nostalgia in something resembling actual historical reality. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Europe is just this nutty place where a lot of crazy mixed-up stuff happened and look at this darling model ski lift! That's Wes Anderson: He can't see the forest for the twee. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: I amaze myself by liking this latest lunatic cocktail as much as I do. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Mr. Anderson's lovely confection ... keeps us smiling, and sometimes laughing out loud. Yet acid lurks in the cake's lowest layers. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Every frame is carefully composed like the illustrations from a beloved book (characters are precisely centered; costumes are elaborately literal); the dialogue feels both unexpected and happily familiar. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Grand isn't good enough a word for this Budapest Hotel. Great is more like it. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Wes Anderson's captivating 1930s-set caper offers a vibrant and imaginative evocation of a bygone era. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Anderson has made a madcap caper that doubles as a winsome eulogy for such archaic virtues as glamour, civility, and dutiful customer service. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Anderson's films are too precious for some, but for those of us willing to lose ourselves in them, they're a delight. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is no different, except that he has added a hint of gravitas to the mix, improving the recipe. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: In the end it's Fiennes who makes the biggest impression. His stylized, rapid-fire delivery, dry wit and cheerful profanity keep the movie bubbling along. Here's to further Fiennes-Anderson collaborations. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: With "The Grand Budapest Hotel," Wes Anderson is up to his old tricks but with a magnanimous new confidence that feels like a gift. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: No amount of visual invention can substitute for characters, though, and Anderson doesn't so much write characters anymore as recruit a great cast and dress them up. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: I would call "The Grand Budapest Hotel" major whimsy. It's a confection with bite, featuring an ensemble led by the invaluable Ralph Fiennes, here allowed to exercise his farceur's wiles. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A higgledy-piggledy tutti-frutti concoction that also has its share of old-world melancholy. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Playing an Old World charmer with clipped diction and a deliciously foul mouth, Fiennes, making his debut with Anderson's stock company, falls into lockstep with the filmmaker's unmistakable universe. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: If a movie can be elegantly zany, this wholly imaginative, assured fable of a legendary concierge Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), his protege Zero (Tony Revolori) and the murder of a countess, is it. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Budapest" is pretty much an old-fashioned screwball comedy garishly dressed. It's goofy, eccentric and often downright silly. There are many scenes that would have worked in a "Three Stooges" movie. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: I've had my Wes Anderson breakthrough - or maybe it's that he's had his. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a marvelous contraption, a wheels-within-wheels thriller that's pure oxygenated movie play. Read more

Kate Erbland, Film.com: "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is not his grandest work yet, but it is one worth an extended stay. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: In a very appealing if outre way, its sensibility and concerns are very much those of an earlier, more elegant era, meaning that the film's deepest intentions will fly far over the heads of most modern filmgoers. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Anderson works so assiduously to create obsessively detailed on-screen worlds that the effect has sometimes been hermetic, even stifling. "The Grand Budapest," however, is anything but. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: For once, Anderson will let his airless snow globe be shaken and dropped, and in this case crudely glued back together by Communism, coyly referred to as the time of "common property" Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: A sobering message movie that still know hows to tickle us with a goofy ski chase that is joyously and purely Wes Anderson through and through. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The movie is a flume ride through the imagination of one of the most creative minds making movies today, and the pleasure curls your toes. Also, be ready to crave some macaroons. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: There are hints that Fiennes has it in him to portray a worthwhile human being here -- tender, smart, impulsive, humane, and witty -- but this potential is smothered by Anderson's chronic preference for guest stars and demented art direction. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The tender friendship between the wide-eyed Zero and the worldly Gustave gives this movie an emotional core that isn't always an Anderson priority. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The opera-bouffe plot serves as a strand of bright golden wire on which Anderson hangs innumerable encounters, scampering chases, and an archly decorative style of commentary. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: While Anderson delights in creating a fictional (but very real) mittel-Europe, he also does it with the craft of old Hollywood, using carefully made miniatures and handpainted backdrops. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: Grand Budapest is a culmination of the tinkly music-box aesthetic of Anderson's work to date, turned up to 11. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: As with all of Anderson's films, the magic is in the cast. Fiennes, with his rapid-fire delivery and rapier mustache, is hilarious, dapper and total perfection. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: This movie makes a marvelous mockery of history, turning its horrors into a series of graceful jokes and mischievous gestures. You can call this escapism if you like. You can also think of it as revenge. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: [Anderson's pictures are] comical without actually being funny, inventive without being freely playful, momentous without being dramatic. The emotional oxygen that would ignite them gets smothered in self-conscious cleverness. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Grand Budapest Hotel is by far the most headlong comedic affair in Anderson's canon. It's practically Marx Brothers-ian at moments. And Fiennes - who knew he was capable of such wicked, witty timing?! Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It offers an engaging 90+ minutes of unconventional, comedy-tinged adventure that references numerous classic movies while developing a style and narrative approach all its own. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: It's a filigreed toy box of a movie, so delicious-looking you may want to lick the screen. It is also, in the Anderson manner, shot through with humor, heartbreak and a bruised romantic's view of the past. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: This is one of Anderson's funniest and most fanciful movies, but perversely enough it may also be his most serious, most tragic and most shadowed by history, with the frothy Ernst Lubitsch-style comedy shot through with an overwhelming sense of loss. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The movie's sad undertone saves "The Grand Budapest Hotel" from its own zaniness - or better yet, elevates the zaniness, making it feel like an assertion of some right to be silly, or some fundamental human expression. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: A movie that, for all its gorgeous frills and furbelows ... never seemed to me to be quite sure what it was about. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: I'm not sure what the formal definition of a masterpiece is, but "The Grand Budapest Hotel" strikes me as something very close. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After feeding on this sweet buffet, sated cinephiles will want to call the front desk to extend their stay. Read more

Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times: It's quintessential Anderson, in other words, but also an unabashed entertainment. And that's something to see. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: The comedy in The Grand Budapest Hotel is among the broadest yet undertaken by Anderson. But amid the frenzied hubbub, there are intimations of a darker, sadder history unfolding. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: From the start, it's clear Anderson is working with a new sophistication both in the vocabulary and structure of the film's voiceover narrations. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The entire movie is like a giant, elaborately decorated cake, created by this most exacting of film craftsmen. And how tasty it is! Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Course after course of desserts, presented with a flourish and served so promptly that you can barely catch your breath between treats. It's not until an hour or two has passed that you realize that you haven't really eaten anything. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The film's shaggy-dog, sort-of-whodunit yarn offers laughs and energy that make this Anderson's most fun film since Rushmore. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The auteur's style-dramatic zooms, winking symmetry-is balanced against a newfound political context; this one's his To Be or Not to Be. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's a mature, intricately layered visual delight. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The Grand Budapest Hotel brought out my inner Hunca Munca, of Two Bad Mice fame: This meticulously appointed dollhouse of a movie just went on and on, making me want to smash many miniature plates of plaster food in frustration. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: An exquisitely calibrated, deadpan-comic miniature that expands in the mind and becomes richer and more tragic. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: If Anderson buries relatively little moral substance under lavish dollops of rich cream, at least he, like his fascinating protagonist, sustains the illusion with a marvelous grace. Read more