dashforcover

This film is pretty pathetic. In fact, there are only 2 good reasons for taking the time to watch it so you won't feel your time is completely wasted. The first is that you feel a moral obligation to see any and all Mummy related movies -- good, bad or indifferent. The second is that you are a great fan of all work of Louis Gossett, Jr. To see this master at work in film completely unworthy of his great talent still provides a real fan the joy of watching him.

You also get a few other quality actors Lloyd Bochner, Mary Jo Catlett, and Aubrey Morris with Richard Karn bringing some delightful humor sequences. So if you can appreciate these snippets, you won't have your time totally wasted. Not ... totally.

While I enjoyed some of this film, a couple of things bothered me. Judging from the narrator speaking English, the audience of this film was primarily people who speak English. It is inexcusable in 2011 to not have interpretation either with voice over or subtitles of the non-English portions. Glad the people from India, Okinawa, and other non-English speaking people spoke to the cameras. It might have been useful to know what you were talking about.

The other thing that concerned me was the likelihood of the ultra rich to say "we don't need to pay you a living wage. It won't make you any happier anyway." They only briefly mention "once basic needs are met". So I can see this film joining the fake theory of trickle down economics to become part of the "arguments of justification: used by that group to explain to themselves why it's OK to holding on to more and more of the wealth.

I really looked forward to seeing this. I mean, John Malkovich as Poirot. To be fair, after seeing it, the detective's name should have been changed to PooRot. Because it was. I did like Andrew Buchan just because he is nice to look at. And I enjoyed seeing Rupert Grint pull a decent police inspector out of the toilet where the other characters were swimming. It was good to see him handle a character who was not commedic. But Malkovich's Poirot sporting a goatee rather than just a moustache? And his history of being a policeman challenged? That strained credulity. But then to have it be that his history showed he had actually been ... no, no, it is just too too to even suggest. Spoiler avoided.

I don't care for Wes Anderson. Every time trailers give me the impression it's going to be funny, I'm deeply disappointed. For me, Wes Anderson's works range from stupid to really stupid. Grand Budapest Hotel is typically stupid. What makes it a little better is the true humor of the sets and costumes. From the Easter egg candy colored hotel with delightful columns, a grand stair-step tram to raise visitors to the heights of the hotel's entrance, delightful hotel staff costumes and villains costumed in traditional black, this Wes Anderson did give this viewer one arena of entertainment that the rest, acting, story (what story?), plot (what plot?), characterizations (who cared about any of them?) lacked. I did enjoy the stellar cast. I think they do Wes Anderson's films because making them must be fun.

My favorite of the cast? Jeff Goldblum. I liked his character. And his was the only character about whom I had any feeling for care or concern.

Will I ever watch a Wes Anderson film? Yes, but only for the reason I dragged myself through it this time-- it was on the IMDb 250 top films list on the 31st of December. For those who like Wes Anderson, your sense of comedy is different from mine, not better, just different. As for me, I think I'll go back to Woody Allen films.