In The Grand Budapest Hotel, doom and death are all but unavoidable: The film is set largely in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, and just outside the hotel's doors lies the barbaric slaughterhouse we know as humanity. It's a big cast and a big story, and as an adventure and a caper, Grand Budapest is so tremendously, ridiculously fun that it would exuberantly fly off its rails if it weren't for Wes Anderson's confident touch and Ralph Fiennes's remarkable performance. If anyone tells you Grand Budapest isn't hilarious, they're dead inside, but so is anyone who thinks it's merely a screwy comedy: The darkness that peeked from the corners in Anderson's earlier films is starting to crawl out. Even with all its fantastical affectations, the film has an ominous weight. by Erik Henriksen