The result, in the case of Moonrise Kingdom, is what I call transcendentally brainless - an after school special aimed at asinine adolescents over the age of 40.
It's clear from the reviews that you either like Wes Anderson movies or you don't. If you're not a fan, this will not turn you into one. If you are a fan, then you've been waiting a long time for this movie and you won't be disappointed. It's got a lot of familiar quirks: the colorful tableaux filming style, the eccentric characters, etc, but it's got new stuff as well. There's more genuine emotion in the movie than probably any of his films since Rushmore (although, as usual, it's a little subdued). He did interesting things with the relationship between Suzy and Sam, too - pushing the boundaries a bit while still ultimately keeping things "innocent". My only disappointment with the movie was that I felt he marginalized Bill Murray a bit. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen pretty much every good line he has. One the other hand, it was nice to see some new faces in the movie. In addition to the kids, Edward Norton looked like he was born to be in these movies, and Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel (!) fit in quite nicely, too.
The premise seemed very interesting, an orphan loner escapes from scout camp to elope with a young girl. The authority figures (police, scout masters) search the island trying to find them, with the help of the girls parents and the rest of the scouts. It sounds like a classic coming of age story between two socially inept outcasts, were it conjures the isolation of adolescence and the awkwardness of youth as it enters into sexual maturity. But the film wasn't really about the story at all and this is were it fell massively short. Moonrise kingdom is basically about how many visually symmetrical shots Wes Anderson can put onto a screen within 1 hour and 30 minutes. The colour scheme is typical Wes Anderson, vibrant red, greens, yellows and blue's, little bobble hats on most of the characters. The man has a 5 minute sequence at the start of dolly shots going up and down a house. Then followed by a dolly shot that travels left to right tediously for about three minutes with Edward Norton as he wakes up and goes outside for breakfast. He repeats this shot about 3-4 times during the film for similar lengths of time. When a letter appears on screen it's shot from birds eye view from above, when the main character reads a map it's shot from a birds eye view from above....everything is perfectly symmetrical. When they go to open a tent it's shot dead centre, then it's shot inside perfect symmetry as you see the zip being opened…Full Review »
Wes Anderson's best movie in years - right up there with Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore. (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Life Aquatic, and Darjeeling each fell well short of my own expectations.) He nails the time period, the locations are perfect, the young actors are amazing (not over or underplaying anything) , the cadence is on the money, and the adults are much more genuine and sincere than they have been in other W.A. films. There is nary a dull moment in the film. Best of all, it brought back warm memories of my own time in the Khaki Scouts. It's my easiest recommendation in a while.…Full Review »
