The Grand Budapest Hotel ****

A delightful, intricate comedy, encased like a gem in several boxes within boxes of narration, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" details the story of its most celebrated, meticulous, attentive, considerate, and rather randy concierge, M. Gustave (a perfectly cast Ralph Fiennes). Wes Anderson's latest work is set in a mythical Eastern European country at a mountaintop resort in the period between the great wars, lending it a darker tone than we've seen from Anderson lately as the military becomes more and more evident and in control.

Told from the viewpoint of the lobby boy who will one day own the hotel (not a spoiler), Zero Moustafa (a superb Tony Revolori) becomes the protégé, confidant, co-conspirator, and friend of the resourceful, exceedingly well-mannered, cultured fountain of poetry that is M. Gustave. They barge into a dangerous situation when they go to pay their respects to an aged long-time regular guest (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton) who turns up murdered after she returns home. Her bequest to M. Gustave precipitates events involving rapacious relatives and imprisonment for the legendary concierge.

It's a fast-moving story, told with wit and inventive composition. Exteriors of the hotel have a cutout, marzipan quality. Camera work in chase scenes take on the spirit of the 'twenties. For most of the movie, Anderson even changes the aspect ratio of the frame to what was the style in the 'thirties after peeling back the layers to get to the story.

Supporting actors are a delight, including Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Tom Wilkinson. Saoirse Ronan strikes just the right tone as Zero's girlfriend and help mate. Composer Alexandre Desplat deserves special praise for his choices, arrangements, and compositions. And thanks to director Wes Anderson, who also has a writing credit, for giving us another great movie.

Stranger by the Lake (L'inconnu du lak) ****

Set entirely at a lake frequented by men looking for anonymous sex, "Stranger by the Lake" builds suspense and dread as it explores carnal desire, loneliness, sexual attraction, depression, and friendship in the shadow of a murder committed there. This demimonde is a strange place, as its habitués leave their ordinary lives behind, free from names, history, and relationships of the everyday world. But it's here that Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) finds what he is looking for in the person of Michel (Christophe Paou), an attraction that is beyond reason, prudence, and evidence. The story seems to say there is a mystery about life and sex that can be shown, but not explained.

The film has a detached, almost clinical point of view, and does not cut away from full nudity or even graphic sex. Given its subject matter, the director, Alain Guiraudie, could hardly do otherwise. "Stranger by the Lake," or "L'inconnu du lak" in its original French, is beautifully made, intriguing, erotic, and fascinating. The film, not rated and subtitled in English, has appeared widely on the festival circuit, winning "Un Certain Regard" at Cannes for Guiraudie last year, and a Cesar, the French Oscar, for Deladonchamps for most promising new actor. 

Non-Stop ***

A suspenseful, satisfying popcorn thriller with Liam Neeson as the flawed protagonist we've come to expect, "Non-Stop" delivers enough surprises to keep even jaded fans taken in. Neeson plays Bill Marks, a weary air marshall on yet another trans-Atlantic flight. He starts getting threatening messages on his secure phone demanding payment to an off-shore account, or else passengers will start to die. Sure enough, the body count starts, but again, not in the way you, or he, might have expected.

Marks' seat mate, Jen Summers (a somewhat mysterious Julianne Moore), is by turns helpful and under suspicion. As his efforts hit one obstacle after another, the plane hurtles through a countdown toward doom. Marks employs more and more desperate tactics, and in large part the film lives up to its name, never flagging or pausing.

While this is above all Neeson's movie, the supporting roles are solid, anchored by fine work as usual from Julianne Moore. Recent Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o has a small role as a flight attendant, alongside Michelle Dockery as the other business class attendant with a history. Director Jaume Collet-Serra, who also directed Neeson in the thriller "Unknown" (2011), again delivers a workmanlike production.

The Lego Movie 3D ****

A surprise hit when it opened Feb 7, "The Lego Movie" has continued to dominate the U.S. box office through this weekend. And with good reason. It's a wonderfully inventive, fast-paced animated movie entirely constructed of Legos that cracks wise while skewering pop icons and delivering a message extolling creativity over conformity. Clearly there's much more than needed to keep the little ones interested, and reports are surfacing on Facebook of twenty-somethings seeing it multiple times. Yes, it's fine for the kids, but it's the adults who will laugh loudest.

Among a host of good voice work, I particularly liked the unmistakeable cadences of Morgan Freeman as the godlike prophet Vitruvius, Liam Neeson as the Good Cop/Bad Cop, and Will Farrell as President Business. Animation props go to the huge crew that put it all together, especially the impressive water surfaces, and to the directing team, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also brought us "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "21 Jump Street." I saw the version in 3D, which was consistently well used.

The topical, historical, and pop culture references came so fast and furious, it was difficult to catch them all. Now that I consider it, I might have to see it again.

Gloria ****

Gloria is a woman of a certain age, single, divorced, with two grown children, who lives, works, and plays in Santiago, Chile. She is open to new experiences and loves to go to the clubs to dance and have a good time. At one of the clubs she meets Sergio, a retired naval officer, and they start to see each other more and more often.

In the course of the story we get to know Gloria very, very well. She is in virtually every shot as director Sebastián Lelio, who also co-wrote and co-edited, follows her everywhere. It's a demanding role played flawlessly by Paulina García, who so fully inhabits the character it feels like a documentary at times. Thank goodness she's likable and interesting.

Lelio's character study is close-up, unflinching, and non-judgmental. "Gloria" the movie, like Gloria the character, is warm, funny, wise, and sympathetic. "Gloria," in Spanish with English subtitles, is a portrait of a woman who becomes more than a single person in Santiago, while remaining uniquely herself. It's fantastic.

Pompeii 3D **

"Pompeii" suffers from a lack of imagination on the story side and an excess of enthusiasm on the special effects side. For a glimpse into the vibrant life of a thriving center of commerce and leisure for the Roman upper class in 79 AD we get, what, another gladiator movie?

With much of the story line echoing the original "Gladiator," we see a boy in Britannia whose family was murdered by the Romans in front of him and whose later prowess in the gladiatorial ring brings him to the big time in the arena at Pompeii. In Pompeii he catches the eye of a high-born lady who is being courted by - guess who - the very general, now a Roman Senator, who ordered the slaughter in Britain. The Senator (Kiefer Sutherland) and his main henchman seemed to have been locked in a time machine for 20 years, because they look exactly the same as they did in the first scenes.

Our hero Milo (Kit Harington of "Game of Thrones") is a wonder in the ring, but there's no time to explain his fighting skills or even pause for a setback. He befriends the veteran gladiator who is to be his rival (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and has a moment with the lady (Emily Browning) at her villa when he has a chance to calm her horse, spooked by the pre-eruption rumblings of Vesuvius. It's a semi-"Titanic" moment, but alas, the wooden-faced Harington is no Leonardo DiCaprio.

Finally we get to the real focus of the movie, when all hell breaks loose. Clearly, eruption and destruction is what engages director Paul W.S. Anderson, and "Pompeii" hits its stride. The scenes of destruction are imaginative and thrilling, and 3D is put to good use. Never mind that the phases of the eruption do not follow the eye witness accounts we have. Never mind that there was no tsunami, which would have had to originate offshore, and Vesuvius lies inland. Never mind that no giant chasms opened up, swallowing people and houses and horses. The movie rushes to its inevitable end, the world of Pompeii meets its fiery burial, and we're left sitting in the theater, drained and exhausted as the credits roll.

RoboCop IMAX ***

Yet another reboot of an earlier hit, this one largely successful, "RoboCop" updates the technology, widens the perspective, and amps up the star power to present a new version of Paul Verhoeven's 1987 classic story of man in machine.

In 2028, OmniCorp, once again based in a crime-ridden Detroit, supplies the Pentagon with a variety of robots (tellingly called "drones") for its world-wide policing activities, including the streets of Tehran. Indeed, the Pentagon seems to be in charge of policing worldwide; everywhere, that is, except the "robo-phobic" United States, where it's illegal to put a gun in the hands of a machine.

But OmniCorp's head man, ruthless master-marketer Raymond Sellars (a solid, well-cast Michael Keaton) has an idea: Put a man inside the machine, someone with feelings and a conscience that people can relate to, can trust to do the right thing. The RoboCop program is born and given to top researcher and developer Dr. Dennett Norton (a superb Gary Oldman), who really does have a conscience. The cop chosen is Alex Murphy (Swedish actor Joel Kinneman), a straight-arrow crime fighter going after corruption who was critically injured in a crime syndicate's bomb blast.  Abbie Cornish as Alex's wife is both supportive and steely as the situation requires.

Throughout development and testing, it's always the human element that gets in the way of progress it seems, from the shock Alex feels when he wakes up mostly machine, through the feelings that overwhelm him when the crime history of Detroit is downloaded into his memory. On OmniCorp's side, however, we see the opposite problem: a lack of feeling and a pursuit of profit at the top that leads to real evil being done.

"RoboCop" cost a reported $100 million to make, and looks it. The production is beautifully designed, the special effects are superb, and informational screen overlays are clear, logical, and easy to grasp. Brazilian director José Padilha, a top award recipient back home for "Elite Squad," does a fine job with a top-drawer cast, although several action sequences were uninspired, sometimes confusing. In general the pacing is fine, and the fan boys should be happy.