I've just got to stop watching Wes Anderson movies

Rating: 4/10 (5 October 2018)

My fondness for Royal Tennenbaums combined with the critical acclaim and distinct look of Wes Anderson's movies always sucks me in, but I've regretted every Anderson film I've watched from Darjeeling Limited on, and Budapest Hotel is no exception.
I can't say a lot about the plot because I saw the movie on a red-eye and slept through the middle. From what I saw it's about a man who inherits a painting and has some trouble about it.
The man is played by Ralph Fiennes and he is terrific as a cool, quick-witted, unflappable character. His dialogue is sharp and funny. The movie overall is pleasantly goofy.,
So why didn't I like it? Well ...
Some movies engage and draw in the viewer. Some movies try to do that a fail. But Budapest Hotel strives to distance the viewer as much as possible. Characters are filmed at a distance and speak in rapid-fire patter that never achieves the warm quirky charm you get from patter-classics like The Front Page or Bringing Up Baby. The movie feels like a clever experimental short built around the concept of people in a dollhouse and stretches it out forever. Everything in this screams out FORMAL EXPERIEMENT; nothing screams out CARE ABOUT THIS.
Would I have enjoyed this movie more if I'd not been so sleepy? Maybe a little. I might have found this a more almost-fun movie like Fantastic Mr. Fox rather than an increasingly annoying one like Moonrise Kingdom. But ultimately I find all of Anderson's later films are quirk-heavy stylistic exercises that leave me cold, and there was nothing in what I saw of Hotel to make me believe my reaction wide awake would have differed much from my reaction half asleep.
So this is it. No matter how the critics rave, Budapest will be my last Anderson movie. For those of you who like this sort of thing, ENJOY!