The Grand Budapest Hotel

(M) ★★★★★

Director: Wes Anderson.

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law.

"Here's to quirkiness and symmetry."

No director of the past few decades is as distinctive and idiosyncratic as Wes Anderson.

His cinematic style and visual language is so unique as to be instantly identifiable from just a few frames, and all those quirks are on display within the opening minutes of The Grand Budapest Hotel - the wonderfully weird offering which could be Anderson's best to date.

Like his previous gems The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Fantastic Mr Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel has all his skills and tricks coalescing around intriguing locations and bizarrely loveable characters.

The central player is Monsieur Gustave (Fiennes), a concierge during the 1930s at the titular hotel, which sits amid the mountains of the fictional European country of Zubrowka.

Due to a predilection for some of the older female guests of the hotel, Gustave finds himself having to clear his name after being accused of murdering the wealthy Madame Desgoffe und Taxis (an unrecognisable cameo from Tilda Swinton).

Helping him along the way in his quest for freedom is lobby boy Zero (Revolori), who is also relating Gustave's story three decades later as an old man (Murray Abraham) to an unnamed author (Law).

There's also an extra layer to this story-in-a-story-in-a-story conceit, which is ultimately unnecessary but sets the tone of the film and its sense of humour quickly.

That style and comedic sense is very Anderson-esque - fans of his previous work will love every colourful moment of this caper. His usual cinematic tics are in full bloom too, such as strange panning shots, a near constant use of symmetry, unnatural acting styles, general absurdities, a distinctive colour palette, and the use of inter-titles and animated dabblings. No other director would get away with such things all at once, yet they are the natural language of a Wes Anderson film, and once again these quirks combine as a thing of beauty (if you are willing to accept the weirdness and artificiality of it all).

The Anderson regulars return too - Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Bob Balaban get cameos among a mammoth cast that also includes bit parts from Léa Seydoux, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, and Tom Wilkinson.

The star though is Fiennes, whose remarkable performance makes Gustave one of the most intriguing characters to drive a film in recent years. A mixture of grace and snootiness, bluntness and front, fakery and honesty, he makes for a fascinating hero and a departure from anything we've seen Fiennes do in the past.

An argument could be made that this is Anderson's best film. Some of his past works have been derided for being plotless (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) and meandering (The Life Aquatic), but The Grand Budapest Hotel is neither of those things

It's story is gripping and moves at a breakneck speed - so much so that a bizarre chase sequence actually slows the film down and would feel like padding if it wasn't so absurdly funny. The whole film whirs by at a blistering, breathless pace.

Best of all, the movie is hilarious and easily the funniest Wes Anderson effort to date. Fiennes gets regular laughs, Wilkinson's opening address features one of the biggest guffaws, and the film includes probably the most absurd prison break in cinematic history.

Is this Anderson's best? Time will tell, but if nothing else it continues a remarkable run of modern classics.

Transcendence

(M) ★★★

Director: Wally Pfister.

Cast: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Clifton Collins Jr, Kate Mara.

"You can piss up a rope/you can put on your shoes/hit the road/get truckin'...."

If you believe the movies, artificial intelligence has got it in for us.

From HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Terminator's Skynet, these sentient slices of silicone tend to value their own existence over that of humanity, Asimov's first law of robotics be damned.

Transcendence, the directorial debut of Christopher Nolan's regular cinematographer Wally Pfister, delves into the theoreticals and hypotheticals of AI in interesting ways, raising plenty of questions along the way about where this technological superhighway might lead.

But the film lacks the foreboding or tension that usually comes with going head-to-hard drive with a computerised combatant, leaving its all-star cast to get hysterical while we wonder whether it's all really that bad.

The potentially big bad bunch of bytes in Transcendence is Will Caster (Depp), an artificial intelligence (AI) expert who is shot by a group of anti-technology radicals.

In desperation, his wife Evelyn (Hall) and their friend Max (Bettany) upload Will's consciousness into their AI supercomputer. From there it's just a skip and jump to the internet and soon Will is everywhere; an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent force that can finally help Evelyn fulfil her dreams of changing the world.

But is AI Will really evil? Much of the film's final half is dedicated to the battle to shut Will down, but the film's tone and atmosphere is strangely devoid of tension.

This is partly because AI Will appears to be more of a benevolent god than a malevolent one. His actions appear completely altruistic throughout the story, yet everyone is busy looking at the 'what if?' while running around yelling 'we have to shut it down!'.

It's as if an essential part of the plot has been missed or skimmed over - yes, things get creepy, but where's the dramatic tension and the call to conflict? The film rushes to its final showdown after setting a languid pace for the first hour, and something has been left out in the process.

Having said that, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. Who's the big bad here - the AI making the world a better place or the stupid humans afraid of change? Is this why the tension and drama is manufactured or lacking - because we're "programmed" to barrack for the stupid humans?

The ideas at play in Transcendence - the old touchstones of man vs machine, evolution, the dangers and morals of technology, and gods and mortals - are the highlight of the film, along with a strong cast and some beautiful cinematography. Given Pfister's work on Nolan's Batman trilogy and Inception, it's no surprise Transcendence looks amazing, and the director certainly takes his time to focus on abstract close-ups as part of the film's symbolism.

Hall does great work, as does Bettany, and everyone else is serviceable. The only mis-step is Depp, whose subdued turn might perplex some people. For someone accused of hamming it up way too much lately (The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Alice In Wonderland), Depp's performance is so underplayed as to be almost non-existent. If nothing else, it's unexpected.

Transcendence is enjoyable but with this cast and these ideas, it's a missed opportunity. The possibilities of its story are frightening and intense, but the film never feels like either of these things.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

(M) ★★★★

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo.

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, Frank Grillo.

Insert joke about farting in elevators here.

NINE films into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, and this megafranchise shows no signs of slowing.

The only perceptible weakness has been getting their sequels – Iron Man 2 and 3, and Thor 2 – to match up to the incredibly high standards of their predecessors.

It’s a tough ask, but one they ably meet in Captain America 2, with the resulting film that rarest of movie beasts – a sequel as good as the original.

Of course, this is more than just a sequel to the 2011 debut of supersoldier Steve Rogers (Evans). It follows on from the hero team-up The Avengers and makes more than a few passing references to the larger Marvel universe, continuing to weave its interconnected web, which fans are finding almost as enjoyable as the films themselves.

But with an ever-expanding universe, there’s a danger that the standalone character films could become redundant in a post-Avengers world – when facing peril, why not just call up Iron Man, Hulk and Thor to lend a hand?

Thankfully, this isn’t a problem in Captain America 2, where a subterfuge-reliant plot means things move too fast and too secretively to wonder why Rogers isn’t calling his superpowered buddies to lend a hand.

Not that he’s alone in his mission fighting the film’s Big Bad (the less you know about the actual what and who of the plot and its villains, the better for your enjoyment). The Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff (Johnasson) returns for her third Marvel outing, as does head spy Nick Fury (Jackson making his sixth appearance), while newcomer Sam Wilson aka The Falcon (Mackie) is a welcome addition as an army veteran with a very cool jetpack.

Each of these characters – plus the titular metal-armed Winter Soldier – gets plenty of screen time to do their thing. The Falcon feels like a fully fledged superhero as opposed to a crammed-in sidekick, while Black Widow and Nick Fury continue to develop as interesting players who could easily carry their own spin-off films.

As for Captain America himself, people who see him as a jingoistic piece of chestbeating patriotism will be surprised to learn he doesn’t represent a country but rather an ideal that is at loggerheads with his country. The plot is particularly timely, with its electronic espionage angles tackling the NSA phone-tapping scandal and governments' ability to monitor our movements and behaviour in an age when we share everything online, leaving it to Captain America to ask the question "is this really freedom?".

As a result, the tone of the film and its security-vs-privacy notions is more akin to the political conspiracy films of the ‘70s, as opposed to the Raiders Of The Lost Ark vibe of the first Captain America movie, or the sci-fi/fantasy blend of the Thor films, or the epic blockbuster stylings of The Avengers.

The action sequences and fight scenes are superb, especially Captain America’s near-singlehanded takedown of a boatload of pirates, his punch-ons with The Winter Soldier and Batroc, and the moment when The Falcon finally shows what his jet pack can do.

It’s hard to judge whether this film makes any sense without having seen the first Captain America movie, but I get the feeling it does, with plenty of backstory helpfully spliced in throughout.

And if that feeling is correct, then this is already shaping up as one of the best actioners of the year, whether you’re a Marvel fan or not.

Noah

(M) ★★★★

Director: Darren Aronofsky.

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Anthony Hopkins, Douglas Booth.

"It's raining soooo much!"

Darren Aronofsky moves in mysterious ways.

He's won swags of awards for films about wrestlers and ballet dancers (The Wrestler and Black Swan), confounded fans and critics with strange eon-spanning sci-fi (The Fountain), and made one of the bleakest and devastating addiction movies of all time (Requiem For A Dream).

It was more than a little surprising to hear his next film was a big budget take on the Biblical story of Noah, which sounded on paper to be more like something Roland Emmerich would do.

But the common thread of his work has been the theme of obsession, and it carries on in his ark tale.

Noah intriguingly has a bet each way on its subject matter - yes, all the animals turn up at Noah's boat and the earth floods, but as the story progresses you can't help but wonder if Noah has indeed been touched by God or whether he's just off his trolley. Is his holy task just that or has he become obsessed by it, and driven mad? Where does the voice of the Creator stop and the voices in his head start?

Riding this line between appeasing the faithful and making an interesting film with an internal logic for the questioning non-believers is one of the most interesting and appealing aspects of Noah (although I say that as a devout atheist).

The basic Biblical plot remains in tact - men are wicked, the world floods and wipes them out, Noah and his family survive in an ark with two of each animal.

But the film adds layers of the depth and, dare I say it, reality to the story, making it far more morally complex and fascinating than the few chapters of Genesis indicate. For example, if all these so-called wicked humans found out someone was building a giant boat, don't you think they'd be a little bit interested in what was going on? And don't you think they'd try to get on board when it starts raining a lot?

And how does Noah deal with the guilt of condemning all these people to death? And if God really wants to wipe out mankind, does that include Noah and his family? How does Noah know where God's will ends and his own interpretation begins?

There are liberties taken here that may displease the faithful. I'm still searching the Old Testament for references to giant four-armed rock monsters, Methuselah being a wizard, and hallucinogenic tea, but the biggest bet each way is in a scene where Noah narrates the Biblical creation tale while Aronofsky matches it to imagery telling the scientific version, from the Big Bang all the way through evolution. It's sure to rile more than a few Christians.

But Aronofsky is to be applauded for delving so deeply into his source text to create a natural-seeming world beyond the basics. There are plenty of theories about what the world was like in a biblically Old Testament sense, and Aronofsky touches on them. He treats his movie world like Peter Jackson treated Lord Of The Rings - he's read the appendices and wants you to feel like you're visiting a fantastical place made real.

The people in that world feel equally real. Crowe gives one of his most memorable performances to date, Connelly has some great moments, Hopkins coasts along as Methuselah, and Winstone is particularly nasty as the film's token villain, despite his Cockney grumble.

There are frustrating elements to Noah - a few dud lines, an overly bombastic score, and the way the plot stretches for closure and climax - but it provides a lot to think about. Beyond the moral complexities and religious ramifications, there is a pro-vegan and pro-environment message, and it hints at themes of climate change, man's place in the world, and the very nature of mankind and evil.

If there were no Hobbit movie coming out this year, Noah would be a serious contender for best fantasy film of the year.

Tracks

(M) ★★★★

Director: John Curran.

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Roly Mintuma, John Flaus.

"Just takin' my camels for a walk."

Anyone who has travelled through Australia's red centre will know it's a journey that is repetitive, sporadically dull, and seemingly endless.

It's also a trip that has to be seen to be believed, thanks to a beautifully alien landscape that is intriguing and somewhat mystical.

Fittingly, these sentiments equally summarise Tracks, the film about Robyn Davidson's 1977 trek from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean.

The film, based on Davidson's book of the same name, sets up the story slowly as the young Australian woman (played by Wasikowska) arrives in central Australia and sets about learning the arts of camel breaking and wrangling.

Securing funding support from National Geographic, Davidson eventually sets out on the 1700-mile journey with four camels and a dog, enduring dust storms, feral camels, harsh conditions, and intermittent visits from a talkative photographer (Driver) along the way.

The who, what, where, when and how of Tracks is interesting, but the kicker is the why. What possesses a seemingly sensible young lady to Burke-and-Wills her way across the most hellish portion of the outback?

Tracks hints at varying theories and it's refreshing that the film never gets carried away with answering the 'why?' definitively. As frustrating as it might seem, the movie encourages you to make your own guesses from the evidence presented, and is all the more rewarding for it.

Wasikowska's performance is top-notch, not only carrying the film, but making Davidson believable and wonderfully multi-faceted, with those facets running the gamut from "stoic and determined" to "more than a little bit bonkers". The adventurous "camel lady" also comes off as either socially awkward or desperately quiet, and again, this adds to the mystery of why she does what she does.

But as mentioned previously, the film manages to be much like the landscape - intriguing yet repetitive, and mystical yet sporadically dull. Wasikowska probably lost count of the number of times director Curran said to her, "OK, Mia, in this shot you're going to be walking through the desert with your camels".

While this might not make for scintillating viewing, it does suit the subject matter perfectly and it's still interesting to watch. You won't be on the edge of your seat, but you'll feel a sense of release at the ending.

The film is also understated in its drama - the troubles Davidson faces are never exaggerated and it seems like the filmmakers have erred on the side of fidelity, making for a quiet and at-times meditative journey, as opposed to hamming up the life-and-death nature of her trip.

A lack of tension is slightly compensated for by the episodic nature of the story, so at least something is constantly breaking the monotony of watching Wasikowska walking with camels. It certainly helps that the landscape is stunning and that Curran and cinematographer Mandy Walker capture it in all its picturesque glory.

Visions of this landscape will stick with you, as will the subject matter. Upon leaving the cinema, it was tempting to think of it as "walking walking walking, met some Aborigines, walking walking walking, chased by camels, walking walking walking...".

But there's something that lingers about Tracks and seems more impressive with a bit of distance.

As an insight into a trip none of us are ever like to take, Tracks is fascinating. It's pace and repetition might put some people off, but for mine this is the perfect way to tell this strange-but-true tale.

The Monuments Men

(M) ★★

Director: George Clooney.

Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville.

Disposing of bodies is never easy.

There's a fake quote attributed to Winston Churchill that regularly does the rounds on Facebook and Twitter.

The story goes that when Churchill was asked whether England should cut its arts funding to boost the war effort during WWII, the prime minister responded; "Then what are we fighting for?".

It's a shame Churchill didn't actually say it (no one did - it's a total fabrication) as it would have been a perfect line for this based-on-fact tale of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program run by the Allied forces.

The team - seven people here, but about 400 service members and civilians in reality - was tasked with venturing into the warzone to recover artworks stolen by the Nazis during their invasion of Europe.

Led by Frank Stokes (Clooney), the hodge-podge squad of art experts go through basic training before heading to the frontline to reclaim such artefacts as the Ghent altarpiece and Michaelangelo's Madonna of Bruges.

But these raiders of the lost art are racing against Hitler's "Nero decree", which sees his troops burn and destroy any works they can't take with them as they retreat, and the rapidly advancing Russian army, who are seeking to claim the pieces as war reparations.

As subject matter, it's brilliant. And look at that cast - buddies Clooney and Damon in their sixth film together, Oscar winners Dujardin and Blanchett in side roles, and much-loved comedy actors Goodman, Murray and Balaban. What could possibly go wrong?

The answer is the script, written by director-star Clooney and co-producer Grant Heslov. After a very clumsy start that introduces the characters without really letting us know them, the film wanders around without focus - the task facing the Monument Men is so broad that there is a lack of tension and drama, despite this being set in the middle of WWII.

Perhaps it's fitting, this wandering plot, as that's what the characters are doing. They're traipsing around war-torn Europe, unsure what they're looking for and unsure where to look for it. But as interesting as this might have been in Robert Edsel's source book, it makes for a far-from-compelling narrative here. It's an approach that's more scattershot than sniper rifle, and the resulting episodic nature doesn't excite.

The Monuments Men comes to life when Blanchett is on the screen as a French museum curator forced to work for the Nazis. It adds a sense of peril and her character is more layered, adding some much needed spark and depth to the film. And whereas the rest of the cast is in varying degrees of cruise control (particularly Murray and Clooney), Blanchett thrives in an admittedly meatier role.

Bonneville is also good as a down-on-his-luck Brit brought onto the team by Stokes, but the cast feels predominantly under-used with their characters underdeveloped. Murray's trademark deadpan and Goodman's usual bluster have been comedic gold in the past, but here so much potential evaporates between infrequent laughs.

Obviously, the subject matter is not a laughing matter, and Clooney devotes a lot of time and a fair bit of repetition to the film's central questions - "is saving art worth losing lives?" and "why is art important?". But with his selected cast (handpicked by Clooney, with each character written with each actor in mind), the film's predominantly light and airy tone, and the likeability of its characters and actors, it seems there is a missed opportunity to create a comedy or dramedy with a message.

Things pick up in the final 15 minutes when the plot finds its focus and the stakes are raised and you can't help but wish the rest of the film had that attitude, instead of just drifting by on Clooney's charm.

The Monuments Men is certainly not terrible and is in fact sporadically enjoyable - it's just disappointing that such a great cast and a wonderful fact-based men-on-a-mission story falls short of its potential.

300: Rise Of An Empire

(MA15+) ★★

Director: Noam Murro.

Cast: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Callan Mulvey, Jack O'Connell, Lena Headey.

Shirts are for wimps. Obviously

Word of the day: "sidequel".

It's where a film (or TV series or book) takes place at the same time as its predecessing film.

So 300: Rise Of An Empire is the sidequel, not sequel, of Zack Snyder's violent historical reimagining of the Battle Of Thermopylae.

It's narrative arc begins before the 2007 film's setting and finishes after King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans have fought the forces of Persian god-king Xerxes at the Hot Gates, and looks at the greater war happening at the same time.

The focus is on Themistocles (Stapleton), who rises to prominence after leading the Greeks to victory over the Persians at the Battle Of Marathon and killing the Persian king Darius in the process.

Darius' son Xerxes (Santoro) is goaded into revenge by vicious general Artemisia (Green), who manufactures Xerxes' rise to god-king status and sets about orchestrating the Persian Empire's second invasion of Athens.

Based on a yet-to-be-published graphic novel by Frank Miller, Rise Of An Empire definitely strives for the same Miller-inspired visuals of Snyder's film (which was based on a graphic novel as well).

Computer-generated blood gushes, the amount of slow-motion probably adds 20 minutes to the film, and every background is drawn from the same visual effects pallette - the highly stylised look of 300 returns and it's one of the best aspects of this follow-up. It's definitely pretty to look at, in as much as this kind of cartoonish, over-the-top violence can be "pretty".

But as the limbs go flying and heads start rolling, so too do all notions of logic, physics and history. This is to be expected in a film where historical figures such as Xerxes and Artemisia are redrawn as an eight-foot-tall mutant and a goth wet dream respecitively, but when you draw a CG moon into the background that is about 100 times bigger than any moon you've ever seen, it tends to rip you away from the reality the filmmakers are trying to create.

This enormous moon is symbolic of where Rise Of An Empire goes wrong. There's over-the-top, and then there's just bafflingly insane. A pointless sex scene in the middle of the film is unintentionally hilarious, but the film can't muster enough of a sense of humour to salvage the moment and embrace how laughable it has become.

Other way-too-bonkers moments, such as using a horse in a naval encounter, are an attempt to one-up 300, but the film devolves into a vague repetition of sea-battle after sea-battle, all the while lacking the emotional core Gerard Butler and his Spartans provided in the first movie.

Aussie Sullivan Stapleton, adopting the faux-British accent we've come to expect in all historical films, does an admirable job with the endless soldier-stirring speeches he has to give, and if nothing else, here's hoping this sets him on a path to the A-list because there is plenty of potential in his performance.

Green also gets some serious credit for what is likely to be a love-it-or-hate-it performance. For my money, it's a memorable and enjoyably devilish turn as the warmongering warrior princess Artemesia, and Green saves Rise Of The Empire somewhat.

Fans of the first film will probably enjoy this return to Snyder (who's back as producer) and Miller's loose interpretation of the ancient Mediterranean, but even they will feel this is a disappointing follow-up.