I found this film on the underwhelming side mainly because I never could develop much interest in the 3 brothers, their running around with so much baggage (I get the metaphor, just didn't need to be hammered on the head all film long), and bouncing around India. Even the 'serious' stuff towards the end never connected with me, plus the staid use of 2-dimensional framing of the scenes just got really boring to watch.

This is most likely be a "love-it-or-hate-it" type of film, and I lean towards the "not liking it much" camp.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

Finally saw it yesterday. My wife is a big WA fan so I knew I;d have to bite the bullet and endure this... Unsurprisingly I thought it was horrible, but also as expected I loved the music.

Pretty much what I thought. Perhaps a B-.

I really hated the mom character. None of those scenes clicked with me, and I usually tolerate AH quite well.

I'll probably end up buying it once CH has it or I can get it for about $5; and will likely only watch it once or twice more, probably as part of a WA marathon day.

My friend and I caught an afternoon matinee on Saturday, and were the only 2 in the theatre at first. A guy walked in right when "Hotel Chevalier" started. 10 minutes later when it ended, he got up and left the theater, apparently thinking the whole movie was over! He sheepishly came back in about 5 minutes later, after no doubt demanding his money back from the management and being told the movie was indeed not over and to get back in the theater and sit down.

I missed this in the theater but caught it last night at home. I may be in the minority here, but I thought it was a below average film and one of Wes Anderson's worst. I never felt connected to any of the characters; I thought the dialogue was very predictable and uninteresting.



Other than that, it was nothing spectacular and I am a big Wes Anderson Fan. Of course he has beautiful visuals and unique camera work with great color and set designs but the actual plot was quite disappointing. I was hoping he would revive some of the magic he had with The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and to a lesser extent Bottle Rocket but this was none of those films as it played out much more like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou which I really disliked.

If I were to rank his films they would go as follows:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums- 9/10
2. Rushmore- 8.5/10
3. Bottle Rocket- 7/10
4. The Darjeeling Limited- 4/10
5. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - 2/10

i loved... do you hear me dammit??? LOVED!!!! 'The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou'... one of my favorites... i enjoyed every moment of that film... and i own the Seu Jorge CD of his Bowie in Portuguese stuff... awesome there too...

i really liked 'The Darjeeling Limited' too... i had such a good time watching it... i found it a subtle and moving film... you do have to pay attention as many of the important points about the plot and the characters are very subtle references... sometimes only revealed by a facial expression... it was funny and profound...

I agree with you on this aspect of Life Aquatic at least. That's indeed a great CD.

I love the way this country smells. Kinda spicy.

I loved this movie. In my top five for 2007. Enjoyed the banter between the three brothers and the different situations they were placed in. Witty dialogue as usual ("Look at these assholes") and the scene at the river was very, very well done.

Is there any way I can watch Hotel Chevalier at this point? Is it on the DVD?

I've tried to find it on iTunes, but it says it's not available in the US at this point.

It is on the DVD.

Perfect. Thanks for the quick response.

I enjoyed this film quite a bit. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I think it has to do with having 2 other brothers. My 2nd favorite Anderson film behind Bottle Rocket. Too bad Criterion didn't release it or that Fox didn't release it on Blu-ray.

I liked both movies as well. The mixed reviews made think I'd not get into Darjeeling, but it was enjoyable.

I saw it today and really liked it. I didn't like Life Aquatic, but loved all of Wes Anderson's other movies.

= J

Saw this last night and while I found it enjoyable I didn't like it quite as much as Wes Anderson's previous films. I chuckled a few times but it didn't feel like it had the heart of Anderson/Wilson's other efforts.

I'd rank WA films as follows:
1. Royal Tenenbaums
2. The Life Aquatic
3. Rushmore
4. Bottle Rocket
5. Darjeeling Limited

Just like most of Wes Anderson's films, this is about a bunch of wealthy eccentric assholes who do things that are slightly eccentric and speak in some sort of snotty proper collegiate diction and grammar and every once in awhile throws in a "fuck" to provide humor through contrast and to make viewers feel smart.

I seriously don't understand people who say they laugh through the entire film... any of his films. Now, I like some of his movies - Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, and Steve Z. Even those though I don't really laugh. It's the kind of funny where you just go "hmm... that's funny." Nothing worth laughing out loud about ever happens in any Wes Anderson movie. I've seen most of his films in the theater in a packed room and the audience was silent in every case...

Another thing about his films - and this one in particular - are that they start out good and promising and they give the impression that they are building up to something bigger... what ends up happening is they never build, they just get boring and tiresome.

This one especially gets boring. It fails to make a point really and whatever point it does sort of make doesn't really matter because the mildly eccentric rich asshole main characters are douchebags at the core... and you shouldn't really care what kind of epiphany they have anyway because they are in their mid-30s and should've figured this shit out when they were pseudo-intellectual teenagers midway through their first year of college and Psych 101.

It's a shame this film didn't really go anywhere because it had a very promising beginning.

I'd rank em like this:

1. Bottle Rocket - B+
2. The Life Aquatic - B
3. Rushmore - B
4. Royal Tenenbaums - C-
5. Darjeeling Limited - D

It may not sound like it, but I really liked Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and Life Aquatic... none of them got more than a mild chuckle out of me though. I think Wes has a fantastic vision and I love the look of his films - I just think he's a bit overrated and his films lack the substance people think they have.

I don't think Wes Anderson's films are meant to incite gut busting laughter. I think The Darjeeling Limited is Anderson's most mature work. There's a lot more going under the surface than his other movies.

I'd rank em like this:

1. Bottle Rocket
2. The Darjeeling Limited
3. The Royal Tenebaums
4. The Life Aquatic
5. Rushmore

That's kinda my point - but people use the word "hilarious" and the term "laugh-out-loud" to describe his films and I think they barely bring about a chuckle. I even think "funny" is an overstatement. It's this sort of pseudo-sophisticated humor that makes people feel smart.

I agree that Darjeeling had more layers than his other films, but I guess I didn't really care about the characters enough to give a shit about their layers. I certainly don't think it was as deep or thought provoking as it pretended to be. The characters were of the same type as his other films, but I think he created more dimensions by keeping other characters as discussions rather than just showing us - this is what gave the illusion of depth.

I enjoyed Darjeeling Limited a lot, it was one of the high points of 2007. These days, I'm not sure what to make of any new Wes Anderson movie because they've gotten a bit hit and miss since Rushmore. My ranking of his films would be as follows:

1) Bottle Rocket
2) Rushmore
3) Darjeeling Limited
4) Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
5) The Royal Tenenbaums

And, personally, there's a large gap between The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic, then another gap, a little smaller, to The Royal Tenenbaums. I've always liked the quirky characters that inhabit Anderson's films, but the Tenenbaums verged a little too close to self-parody in how odd the children were. As for Life Aquatic, that was more a case where, for reasons I can't fully express, it just didn't click with me.

I'd rank them something like this:

Bottle Rocket
Royal Tenenbaums / Rushmore
The Darjeeling Limited
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

The story of Life Aquatic just didn't resonate with me on any level.

I'm happy to see Bottle Rocket topping many of y'all's lists - it is my fav Wes film still and I consider it one of my top overall flicks.

I own all of Wes' movies on DVD - the only director I can claim completist on (yes I know, all FIVE movies!) - but I would probably rank them by release date. Bottle Rocket at the top and Darjeeling Ltd. at the bottom. I love all of his films, and I don't think his "game" is getting worse with each release, but his material is just feeling more and more abstract to me. It isn't always connecting. Bottle Rocket plays much more pure or streamlined compared to Life Aquatic or Darjeeling.

I may be just a simpleton, though. I do believe that his writing collaborations with Owen Wilson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and Royal Tennenbaums) run a little more cohesively than the other two, and the Anderson-Wilson combos are probably the ones I watch the most.

But that can definitely change in time; as Dave Letterman or someone once said (probably to Bill Murray about Life Aquatic), Wes' flicks are very "dense." There's always something else you may enjoy or appreciate on further viewings.

finally got around to watching this tonight (gotta love free movies from the library) and thought it was brilliant

too hard for me to rank my fave WA movies but clearly Bottle Rocket is #1
Darjeeling, Life Aquatic, and Rushmore all are pretty close in terms of being next
and RT takes up the rear

so disappointed Fox Searchlite didn't put this out on BD when they released the dvd
hopefully Criterion will pick up the slack