Theatrical Review: Lego Batman

Date: Sunday February 19 2017

Time: 12:10pm

Party: 3 (mom sister and I)

 

Director: Chris McKay (of "Robot Chicken" fame)

 

Notable Cast:

Batman- Will Arnett

Robin- Michael Cera

Barbara Gordon- Rosario Dawson

Alfred- Ralph Fiennes

The Joker- Zach Galifianakis

Opening comments 

Who knew that the Lego movie would be so huge that it'd warrant a batman spin-off that won over the box office in its first week (now second week)?

It got such rave reviews- certainly more than the past few solo batman movies.

The theater wasn't as full as I thought it'd be with the amount of cars in the parking lot. But a good number of people- mostly moms and younger kids.

 

Trailer

 

Yeah they've had several commercials for "Beauty and the Beast" (and I'm equally excited every time) but it was kind of a letdown that it was the teaser trailer again. Not quite as appetizing as it was the first few times. March needs to get here like now.

The main event 

Yeah I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, but for the first half hour, it felt over hyped. 

Batman kinda did what Deadpool did in his movie- breaking the 4th wall- but to the extreme. From the very beginning, talking us through the opening credits. Batman is so into the character of Batman you kinda gotta wonder about his sanity a bit.

It starts with this big elaborate heist with all the villains led by the Joker that Batman somehow thwarts. But you get to know the man behind the mask (he's rarely without it in this movie) and how deep down he's lonely but is afraid of his own feelings (and snake clowns apparently).

Things are changing in Gotham with Barbara Gordon taking over for commissioner James Gordon (her father) and wanting to reform Gotham's actions against crime. Batman unwittingly takes in Dick Grayson. And even though the Joker surrenders himself (along with 99% of the other villains) there's obviously something afoot. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a movie.

Batman takes a long time but he eventually does change and accepts that he can't do this alone and that he needs other people in his life. 

The Joker recruits so many different villains it's hard to keep track of them all (and I don't want to spoil how bizarre a lot of them are since they're not exactly from the same realm of fantasy). But the second half is definitely better than the first. It doesn't get nearly as insane as what they did with the Lego Movie and it makes about as much sense (which is still very little) but sometimes you just have to sit back and go with it.

There were a lot of great jokes (once the movie stopped taking itself so seriously) and it got lots of different laughs. Some were great adult jokes without being raunchy. (One of the villains being named Condiment-man is debatable). Like one part where the computer reads off the emails he has and one was a newsletter from bed bath and beyond. (That got a laugh out of one of the 40-somethings in the crowd).

The cast itself... Will Arnett does the whole Bat-voice and is totally into his character. He's great at what he does here, but it wears out its welcome for me and took a while to win me back.
Michael Cera- I hadn't seen since the year I saw "Scott Pilgrim" and a bunch of his other movies. He's really good at the orphaned Robin character. Ralph Fiennes is interesting as Alfred- a good interesting. It's different from his typical work.
And Zach Galifianakis is the perfect Joker in this. He's brilliant and should really do voiceover work more often.

Other comments I can add...
I liked the use of music in this. I mean, there's no original songs that are as catchy as "Everything Is Awesome" but they're not bad. Yet I remember more that they liked to play "I just died in your arms tonight" by the Cutting Crew whenever Bruce Wayne/Batman sees Barbara Gordon (ok, only twice... but I love that song... I remember loving it when I was a kid because I picked out by the instrumentals that it was from the 80's... the best decade of music in my opinion).
Then Robin had a scene where he wanted to pick a theme song for them to kick butt and fight crime. Including "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley (one of my many favorite 80's songs... and I have dozens :P) and "Fly Robin Fly."
Batman was certainly a fan of heavy metal and beatboxing.

But I also didn't appreciate the fact the code to the Bat-Cave is "Iron-Man Sucks"...

like, HELL NO!
I can only hope that they don't try to reincarnate Iron-Man as many times as they did with Superman and Batman, trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle they had with Michael Keaton and Christopher Reeve.
And for me, it's kinda at the point where I want RDJ to have more creative freedom in his career, so the sooner he stops being Tony Stark/Iron-Man, the sooner he can get that Oscar he deserved years ago for "Tropic Thunder" (yeah... never letting that go).

Grade: B+
(yeah, all the hype it got from the critics kinda ruined it for me... not to mention "Deadpool" kinda beat Batman to this type of movie and he did it a lot better...

I may add "Suicide Squad"  to the list as well, but I gotta see the movie first. And we do have the DVD in the house. Just waiting for dad to get home so we can watch it together... it was his idea).

Theatrical Review: Kubo and the Two Strings

Date: Sunday August 21 2016
Location: Pocono Movieplex
Time: 12:30pm
Party: 2 (my sister & I)

Director: Travis Knight (1st time director, worked on "Boxtrolls" and "Coraline")
Writers: Marc Haimes, Chris Butler (wrote/directed "ParaNorman") and Shannon Tidle
Composer: Dario Marianelli

Cast:
Kubo- Art Parkinson
Monkey- Charlize Theron
Beetle- Matthew McConaughey
The Sisters- Rooney Mara
Moon King- Ralph Fiennes

Duration: 101 minutes (+3 trailers... that seems to be the standard)

The Audience:

It was a decent group of people. Mostly families with kids between the ages of 8 and 13. They enjoyed it right along with us. Laughed at all the same moments.

Coming Attractions:

A Monster Calls
I had the hardest time deciding whether this was a kid-friendly movie or a horror movie. It's about a boy who goes to private school who is bullied and his mom is also diagnosed with cancer. He summons an imaginary friend, who I think at first is might be Slenderman (an Internet phenomenon that is reportedly behind some gruesome murders committed by kids). But there's more to it than that.
Plus, a monster voiced by Liam Neeson can't be all bad, right? I think this monster is a metaphor for helping this kid deal with his mom's cancer.

Sing
Looking at the first trailers of this, I thought it was a cute gimmick, but didn't know how much substance it could possibly have. Animals singing pop songs. But after seeing this full-length trailer... I think I might actually want to see it.
This singing competition was created to help save a dying theater, but there are all these animals that are just trying to achieve their dreams or change their lives. Who isn't gonna relate to that?

Storks
I'd already discussed this trailer in a previous movie. It'll be interesting to see how it goes when it's released, but I don't have a lot of expectations about it.

The Main Event:

Speaking of not having a lot of expectations...

My sister wanted to see it and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

This movie is seriously so good that I really don't want to go into too much detail about it. I bet it probably be great in 3D with the animation. Really impressive. And you get sucked into it and it's hard to break free from it.

The story is also really good for an animated film. It could appeal to people of all ages. I'm sure people that are older than the intended age group might get a little more out of it. But I see this as the type of movie where, if you grow up watching it, it will be a different movie each time and you'll get a different message from it.

Kubo is an 11-year old boy who lives with his mother. During the day, he goes to a local village where he entertains them with stories, which he tells with his trusty guitar and the magic to make origami figures move. But he has to return home before the sun goes down. Not only to take care of his mother, but also because the two of them are hiding from her family. And they come out at night.

This family is her two sisters and her father, who murdered her husband (Kubo's father), and want to steal Kubo's remaining eye and steal him away to the heavens where they live an immortal life away from humanity.
There's a little more to it than that, but I don't want to go into it. Other than saying that there is some deep stuff here. Including what it is to be human and whether immortality is worth it when you consider what you're sacrificing.

The gist of the story is that there's the one time Kubo stays out after sunset (he wants to take part in a village tradition of honoring the spirits of loved ones and he loses track of time), his aunts find him and using her last bit of magic, his mother sends him away and brings the monkey charm he carries with him to life.
And along the way they meet this guy they call Beetle who says he was with Kubo's father's legion of samurai.
Their journey is to find the three pieces of legendary armor, which they will use to defeat Kubo's grandfather the Moon King.

The rest of it... I'll let play out as it does on the screen.
There are some funny moments, a lot of heart, some drama, action... just a little bit of everything. Something for everybody like I said before.
I'm surprised that it only made $12.6 million so far because it is definitely worth seeing.
As much as I liked "Finding Dory," this is the movie that really should win Best Animated Film at the Oscars next year. It's something special and unique.
I'm sure there will be a handful of people who will complain that, despite the fact this takes place in Japan and it deals with a lot of Japanese culture and values, none of the main characters are played by Japanese people. There are several Japanese cast members, but none play characters that are referred to by name in the actual movie.

At the same time, I think this would be a great film for my college animé club to go out and see. The values and symbolism used throughout the movie, I'd seen explored in some of the series we watched. If the movie is still playing by the time the club has its first meeting, I really hope they give it a shot.
But of course I'd been out of college for 7 years now (OMG!), so what I say really doesn't count for all that much. It's still worth a shot, though.

One final thing: stick around for some of the credits. Regina Specktor sings a really cool version of "While my Guitar Gently Weeps" while some animation plays out in the background. We also get a unique behind-the-scenes look at one of the film's big action scenes.

Grade: A
(If not for a bittersweet ending, I might have given it an A+.)

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (2005)

Director: Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral")

Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Patrick Doyle

Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Wormtail- Timothy Spall
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
Lucius Malfoy- Jason Isaacs
[The Triwizard Champions]
Cedric Diggory- Robert Pattinson
Fleur Delacour- Clémence Poésy
Victor Krum- Stanislav Ivanevski
[other newcomers]
Ex-Auror/DADA Professor Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Madame Maxime of Beaubaxtons- Frances De La Tour
Igor Karkoroff of Durmstrang- Predrag Bjelac
Barty Crouch Jr.- David Tennet (Whovians will recognize him as the 10th Dr. Who)
Cho Chang- Katie Leung
Rita Skeeter- Miranda Richardson
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes

Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Art Direction

Write-up:

Opening Remarks

I don't have much memory of my reaction to the book the first time. I just remembered that they'd have the Triwizard tournament, which would involve one student from each of the three magical schools in Europe... and it was a relief that Harry wouldn't be involved in this for once because he wasn't 17.
...then he was in fact chosen and I seriously was thinking "oh you gotta be kidding me"... I thought it was ridiculous. Like EVERYTHING seems to happen to Harry whether he wants it to or not.

The other big thing I remember [SPOILER ALERT] I wasn't torn up about Cedric Diggory being killed when I read the book. Mainly because I didn't really get to know him all that well and I thought it was unfortunate how it worked out.

Movie-Goer Remarks

The first thing we noticed before the movie premiered was that it'd be rated PG13 because this would be the arrival of our main villain. We finally get to see Voldemort in the flesh of his own body.

Cinematically, it was AMAZING. The three tasks for the Tournament read differently to me in the book. (For whatever reason, I pictured all the dragons being on the field at the same time, chained and the champions had to run past them to get their egg). I thought that maybe the mermaids in the 2nd task would put up more of a fight, but they just stood by and made sure each person rescued only one "treasure." And the third task, while it lacked all the creatures (dementors, blast-ended skewts, sphinxes) in the maze, the overall look of it was scary enough where the creatures would add too much.
This was definitely a book made to be turned into a movie because I didn't grasp the visuals when I read the book the first time.

I remember when the first trailer premiered, which had the chaos at the Quidditch World Cup and Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys running to get out of harm's way. It was even more unsettling because the clip didn't run smoothly with our Internet connection at the time.

Then of course the graveyard scene with Voldemort appearing the first time was scary enough to warrant that PG13 rating. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn't have glowing red eyes like I pictured reading the books, but over time, it did make sense to me. It was emotional when his and Harry's wands connected and his parents reappeared... afterwards, seeing the Mirror of Erised scene in the first movie was even more heart wrenching to watch.

I'm racking my brain to remember whether I temporarily forgot Cedric would be killed... or if I cried out when he got killed... or if I started crying afterwards when his father finds out that he dies.
No matter how it came about, I was a wreck for a couple minutes after that scene. They just had to pick such a cute actor to play Cedric... and it wouldn't be the first time Robert Pattinson made me cry in a movie theater.

A little on Robert PattinsonOmg, he was so cute... when I first heard he was cast as Edward Cullen, I cheered. Mainly because I already knew who he was :P I was shocked that so few people made the connection he was in a Harry Potter movie...as shocking as it is that there are still people who don't like the books or the movies.
But anyway... I do have my nitpicks about him as Edward Cullen. He played the role well, but I hate his American accent. With certain lines, it made hard for me to get into the character :P
I had since gone to the movies twice to see him. One time he dies at the end... which spoiled a movie I really enjoyed...
Last year on 9/11, I watched "New Moon" because unlike "Remember Me" (apart from the tragic ending that happens on 9/11/01, I really liked a lot) he survives it.
"Water for Elephants" was okay... I didn't really like it as much as the Twilight series... he doesn't die at the end, but it's another American accent.
Ironically, in "Bel Ami" he played such a terrible person that I actually wished he had been killed off.

Book-to-Movie

I thought the adaptation was really well done. Visually, it was stunning. Both with the Triwizard tournament tasks and the Yule Ball. That was a pretty amazing moment that was otherwise marred by Ron being a complete jackass and another of his legendary fights with Hermione.

Yeah, between the book and the movie, Ron was pretty unpleasant to be around. I'm sure it was a given that at some point jealousy would rear its ugly head... but did it have to be at something where Harry didn't do deliberately?
We revisit the jealousy in the Deathly Hallows, but it arises for the right reasons... I won't go into it because that's another movie entirely.
You could argue that its teenage hormones that are making Ron not think clearly, thinking that Harry put his name in the Goblet of Fire because he seeks attention, and also overreacting about Hermione going to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum.

Speaking of Hermione... that big moment where she arrives at the Yule Ball in a dress.. that was done so well. When everyone saw it the first time, their jaws probably dropped.
I felt like that when I went to my Senior Prom. At least six people came up to me and said how amazing I looked. That's what I get for wearing jeans and t-shirts all the time :P the only thing that was missing was someone asking me to dance. I came by myself and that got me down 2-3 times. The worst was being trapped on the dance floor during the final song "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" when everyone else had someone and I didn't want to disturb anyone by pushing my way through to exit...
But I think I still had a better night than Hermione did... like she said, Ron "ruined everything."

Seeing Harry and Cho was great, some early sparks flying between them. She was cast really well.
Then there was "Mad-Eye" Moody... wow, he was great to see in the flesh. A little unnerving, but very fun to watch. A literal character.

There were lots of comedic moments and fun moments that weren't even in the book. There's a study hall or something where Ron and Harry talk about getting dates to the Yule Ball and Snape keeps smacking them around. And when they have dancing lessons and Ron is picked to dance with McGongall for a demonstration.
She had a couple funny moments in the movie- like when she berates "Mad-Eye" for turning Malfoy into a ferret.

"We never use transfiguration as a punishment. Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that."
"He might have mentioned it..."

In my previous HP entry
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2015/07/harry-potter-and-prisoner-of-azkaban.html
I mentioned how some of my classmates felt cheated by certain scenes getting cut. That didn't bother me so much...
It did bother me in this adaptation, though.

For starters, there was no Quidditch. They spent all this time building up to the Quidditch World Cup. The Weasleys, Harry and Hermione had to climb all these stairs, we see the entrance of the players... and there's no Quidditch match. It was so dramatic and built up so much... then nothing... it would have been the greatest Quidditch match EVER.
I realize that immediately following is the chaotic camp scene with the Death-Eaters and the movie was already 2.5 hours... but c'mon...

I can understand streamlining the plot to condense it to that duration... but I also felt they should have shown the Rita Skeeter story arc to the end... she was a bit of annoyance in the book, just like the illegal Animagus she turned out to be.
And the whole bit about Barty Crouch Jr. when he was revealed to be the "devil inside the wall" of Hogwarts... he said to Dumbledore, Harry, McGonagall and Snape that "he's back"... meaning Voldemort... yet we had the sheningians of the fifth book/movie where the Ministry of Magic (namely Minister Fudge) spent the entirety calling Harry and Dumbledore liars.

Going by the movies alone, this didn't make sense...
In the book, Snape not only finds out about Sirius being an Animagus and being innocent... but Fudge orders a Dementor's Kiss to seal Crouch's soul so he can't testify about Voldemort's return... why were we robbed of that moment?

My greatest grievance was that we only saw Sirius Black ONCE this entire movie. He appeared twice in the book. And the one time he shows up- it's using the Floo Network. They couldn't have done what they did in the 5th movie with the visual effect?! Unlike the dementors (more on that in the following HP entry), that was a visual effect that they improved. Here, he's just a face popping out of firewood and embers.

Voldemort is a character that has been built up so much through the books so all of us were excited about this. Reading about him in the book, I remember him being terrifying. The performance the actor gives is very commanding. He's more gentlemanly and proper than he came off while reading... but again, it's something that oddly worked. Ralph Fiennes put his own spin on it and owned it so you can imagine no one else in his place.
This last time seeing the movie was the first time I'd seen it since I saw him in "The Grand Budapest Hotel"... such a different role... and I had to talk myself into remembering that Voldemort is supposed to be intimidating and scary and by no means as comedic Ralph Fiennes was as M. Gustave.




As for the other Triwizard champions, Viktor Krum was definitely strong and intimidating. Like Hermonine says, he's "more of a physical being" so he doesn't have many lines. I can see what either of them sees in each other (especially with his homegrown Bulgarian accent).
Then Fleur DelaCoeur is gorgeous, but I feel like she got a little short-changed in this story. She doesn't do well in the 2nd task. Then in the 3rd... I get that the maze is freaky, but it always bothered me how she was so insecure moving through it... it's a very girly reaction and to me it feels like she's not strong enough to be a part of this with the guys.
There are a lot of strong girls at Hogwarts that probably would have done better (had they been of age to compete) and wouldn't have reinforced the stereotype that girls can't be strong as the guys. We have scenes where she's gorgeous and confident, but not while she's actively doing magic.

Whenever I get around to doing a write-up on the 5th movie...well, that'll be an interesting venture because I have some very strong opinions about that adaptation.

Theatrical Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Date: May 4, 2014
Location: Pocono Community Theater
Time: 1pm
Party: 3 (my mom, sister & I)

Writer/Director: Wes Anderson

Duration: 100 minutes (+3 trailers)

Cast:
M. Gustave- Ralph Fiennes
Mr. [Zero] Moustafa- F. Murray Abraham
Zero- Tony Revolori
Madame D- Tilda Swinton
Heckels- Edward Norton
Dmitri- Adrien Brody
Jopling- Willem Dafoe
Agatha- Saoirse Ronan
Deputy Kovacs- Jeff Goldblum
M. Ivan- Billy Murray
M. Jean- Jason Schwartzman
M. Chuck- Owen Wilson
Young Writer- Jude Law

Theater & Previews:

We arrived a few minutes before the movie started. There was maybe a dozen other people in theater, most of them looked older than 50.

The first preview was for a Richard Linklater called "Boyhood," which I'd seen posters for on IMDB but don't know much about it. It sounds like it's a labor of love he spent 12 years slaving over and is unlike any movie you'd seen before. Something about following around a family for a dozen years and filming them, although I'm not sure if it's an actual family or they're all actors.

The second looked interesting. It was called "Words and Pictures," starring a very handsome Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche (who I know from "Chocolat") and they're teachers that develop an unusual relationship. He's a writer who's an English professor in danger of losing his job because he has a drinking problem. She's a newly arrived art teacher that's a little rough around the edges and fresh from an injury we'll likely hear about later in the film.

Then the third was "Dom Hemingway," which is said to be a Jude Law performance unlike any other... might be interesting to see down the road. He certainly can't do any worse than "The Talented Mr. Ripley" or "Closer".

Write-up:

Every now and then, we will take the trip downtown to see a movie not available locally. We'd been here maybe a handful of times, including the two Oscar winners I picked correctly (The King's Speech and The Artist), "Water for Elephants" and maybe one other that I'm forgetting.

I kinda expected this movie would be another one of those. For whatever reason, Wes Anderson movies are still deemed to be on the independent circuit so they don't come to all theaters.
Since its release date, I've said how much I want to see it, but it's not playing locally. Luckily, it finally did make it and my patience was well awarded.

When it comes to this particular writer/director, a few things are inevitable.

• Bill Murray will be in it somewhere
• We'll get at least one Wilson brother
• The sets will be incredibly detailed, all the way down to the shelf knick-knacks
• I'm going to compare it to "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" because it was my first Wes Anderson film.

I was attracted to "The Grand Budapest Hotel" because it looked like another quirky, fun Wes Anderson movie. A few months ago when it was just coming out, I watched the Behind the Scenes special about it on HBO and all of the reviews were positive. People were saying it was the best movie of the year so far.

I'm happy to say that all of the Wes Anderson movies I'd seen so far, this one has been my favorite... second only to "The Fantastic Mr. Fox".

Other than that, I'd seen "Moonrise Kingdom" which I thought was more serious than it had to be and "The Royal Tennebaums" which was so serious it bordered on depressing.

It's kinda hard to explain what "The Royal Budapest Hotel" is about. It starts out with a girl leaving a key at a statue dedicated to a man and she's reading a book named for the movie. We hear the narrative in voiceover and that leads us to the writer talking to a camera. We go back a couple decades and see the writer much younger (played by Jude Law) talking to the man who owned the hotel.

This man (played by F. Murray Abraham) tells us the story the majority of the movie goes into, following the concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his loyal lobby boy Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori).

M. Gustave teaches Zero the ropes, telling him how a lobby boy treats the guests so well that he anticipates their needs before they do.
The hotel is located in a very exclusive, but beautiful location. The inside runs like a well-oiled machine, like something we'd only read about or see on film. Just wondrous to behold.
It's also suggested that M. Gustave takes such care of his guests that he meets their every need, some of which are sexual.

This movie is R-rated, but it goes as far as partial or brief nudity (some of this is in paintings and drawings on the walls) and the amount of cussing.
With the former, I was wary because I didn't want to expose my sister to too much. She was a little more concerned with the amount of cussing (she counted 13-14 f-bombs).

The plot takes off when one of the regular hotel guests passes away. He and Zero goes to her estate to pay respects and to see if she left anything in her will to him. Her will bequeathed to him a portrait known as "Boy with Apple."
Her family is all looking for their cut and is taken aback by the concierge's inclusion in the will. Her son Dmitri is the most vocal, very opposed to him getting the painting... for whatever reason :shrug: seems silly to me, but there's gotta be conflict somewhere.

When they arrive back at the hotel, the police are there looking from him... for some reason believing he killed her.
I saw this scene in the Behind the Scenes where he says "I knew something was suspicious, we never got the cause of death" and he proceeds to run from the authorities.

The movie progresses as he's put in jail, he and some inmates plan a break-out and another member of the Madame's family, Jopling, goes after the executor of her will.
Willem Dafoe plays this role almost like it was written for Christopher Walken. He's pretty hardcore about it, although I'm having trouble recalling if he has much dialogue.

The humor varies from being incredibly obvious to an actor randomly cussing up a storm when something doesn't go their way to something that takes a while for the laugh to hit. The pacing is slow at times. There was a period after the prison break scene where I found myself getting bored because not much was going on and there weren't many laughs to be had.

Another thing that can be expected in a Wes Anderson film is pacing. Often times, you'll have a scene where things race by you, both with the scenery and with the dialogue that it's hard to keep up. Then in the scene immediately afterwards, everything stops and it's almost so quiet you can hear a pin drop.

Probably my favorite part was the chase scene (and its hilarious resolution) where M. Gustave and Zero on a toboggan are chasing after Jopling on skis. You get all kinds of twists and turns. You see a sign that welcomes us to the sight of the local winter games (how timely of them :-P), which includes slaloms, ski jumps and sledding tracks. I won't give away the resolution, but it's unexpected and one of the best laughs of the entire movie.

Pretty much all of the actors are great in this. It's certainly interesting to see Ralph Fiennes do a comedic role after only knowing him as Voldemort for the past several years :-P
Most of the cast members, Wes Anderson has worked with before, including Jason Schwartzman (who I will give his due in my "Fantastic Mr. Fox" review), Edward Norton and Jude Law.

Overall, I found it very enjoyable. The details and quirks were as I expected them to be but there were plenty of surprises in between. The scenery was often vast and the fact it takes place in wintertime with plenty of snowflakes... I just love that, it makes it all look so beautiful.
Yeah, winter does suck and the fact we've had so much snow this year sucks, but I'm a sucker for great winter scenery. My "Frozen" review went into it quite a bit ;)

In its constructs, it's probably the best realized movie I'd seen so far this year. I didn't fully enjoy it as much as some of the other ones I'd seen so far, but it was very satisfying.
I guess you could say it's a sleeper hit in that the enjoyment comes in small subtle doses and doesn't hit as many highs as it could have.

Grade: B+