Directed By Wes Anderson

Starring – Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks

The Plot – The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events that just might be the end of their world as they know it.

Rated PG-13 on appeal for brief graphic nudity, smoking and some suggestive material

ASTEROID CITY | Official Trailer (Universal Studios) – HD – YouTube

POSITIVES

Wes Anderson is one of those visionaries who I strongly feel has an integral hand in every part of his productions, and because of such every artistic element of “Asteroid City” feels like a well oiled machine that continuously plays to the infectious environments and tone that only Anderson could pull off. It starts with the various set designs, color grading, and musical score for the film, which effortlessly emulates the essence of 50’s stageshow plays, which look and feel so unlike anything that Wes has conjured in a career filled with visual spectacles by the dozen. Wes uses his cinematography to truly flesh out an immersive consciousness to the setting, complete with Wes’ typical picture perfect framing and patient editing that lends itself immaculately to the presentation. However, it’s his movements of the lens that are most impactful in coherently fleshing out the three-dimensional outline of Asteroid City, with side-scrolling surveillance style of captivity that not only initially articulate the entirety of the community in just a few captures, but also plays so vividly towards the quirky strangeness of its inhabitants, complete with ongoing gags that often deviate between characters before hammering home an above average consistency in effective landings. On that aspect, Wes also conjures a one-of-a-kind personality for material that not only fearlessly dives into the dark and morbid sentiments of human spontaneity when pertaining to boredom, but also a uniqueness for illustration that frequently digs a little deeper or drives a little further before hammering out its delivery. This is where Wes feels at his most expressive because the script explores some super surreal directions that I truly wasn’t expecting, and if you’re someone on board for Anderson’s brand of lunacy in schenanigans, then you won’t find one more unrestrained than this movie. On top of this, another stacked ensemble of A-list talent by Anderson brings forth a couple of noteworthy performances that definitely stood out among the flock. I’m speaking of Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson, who each supplant some emotional resonance to their respective characters, despite a majority of their approaches feeling cloaked in Anderson’s monotonously mumbling delivery to dialogue that doesn’t always do their respetive emotional arcs a service to their respective outlines. Schwartzman is still very much the embodiment of Anderson’s direction, but does inscribe an on-screen presence and commitment to deliveries that often make him a delight to experience, and when combined with the magnetism that he shares in bonding chemistry with Johansson, easily cements the single most compelling arc for the entire narrative, and one that I often and unfortunately relied a little too heavily on, when compared to the rest of the film.

NEGATIVES

When this film misses the mark, it TRULY misses the mark, with some uninspired decisions to its screenplay that hit on many of the same problems that have plagued Anderson’s last few projects. Most especially is the convoluted clutter of a script that never found its proper footing for me. This is firstly because of a dumbfounding framing device of this world inside of Asteroid City taking place as a stage show, with Bryan Cranston being the narrator of sorts for this adventure. The problem for me is that initially establishing this world as fake makes it all the more difficult to properly invest and especially care about these characters, made all the worse by the constant intrusion of Cranston overtaking the momentum of the narrative, whenever it gains even a little bit of steam to intrigue us and build towards the next scene. This made the pacing of the film horrendously struggle as a result, with the first hour of the movie feeling like the ending was materializing, before realizing that I still regretfully had around forty minutes left of the experience. Part of this problem certainly pertains to the disjointed emphasis of the movie’s two sides, reality and staged, fighting for dominance in the focus of the narrative, but for my money so much more of the chaos lends itself to these one-off scenes and sequences that seriously add nothing to the storytelling or characterization of the film, and instead just leave you scratching your head, as they come and go with no punchline or meaning to why they were even included in the first place. A blossoming love story goes nowhere and feels virtually unexplored, an alien invasion leads to nothing, and even motivation for certain characters staying long-term in Asteroid City doesn’t even get remotely addressed, and I guess we’re just supposed to go with it because the world within the world isn’t real in the first place. Beyond this, a majority of the star-studded ensemble are wasted with thankless roles that with them don’t bring a single shred of relevance or even accidental impact with such boldly vibrant personalities stunted by each of them giving impressions of what Wes Anderson characters are supposed to sound like. Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Tom Hanks, and Jeffrey Wright are plagued by a cloud of comatose that I didn’t think was possible to make any of them feel lethargic at any point in their careers, and Hung Chao, Margot Robbie and Matt Dillon are somehow worse, with show-off cameos that essentially just feel like Anderson expressing his index book of famous numbers by the film’s midway point. Considering Anderson films like “The Royal Tennenbaums” and “Moonrise Kingdom” allowed the actors to open up and emote with some shred of human reflection, the lack of such here is all the more troubling, leaving it difficult to invest in any of their plights or themes that the movie explores, pertaining to grief or first love, which should be easily indulging. Finally, while I did find the dialogue and off-beat schenaningans to bring forth an ample amount of laughter that at least kept my emotions in check, the familiarity of Anderson’s fastly-unloaded dialogue is still every bit as confrontational as ever, especially with vital aspects of exposition that the audience needs to coherently interpret to understand some of the film’s more ambitiously artistic directions. When you have experienced actors who know how to deliver the long-winded conversations without obscuring their intent, then it’s fine enough, but when you have child actors who feel in a race with one another to reach their edit, it becomes taxingly tedious, especially since so much of the dialogue between them hinders on repetition to either illustrate their exceptional intelligence, or their overtly-precocious enveloping.

OVERALL
“Asteroid City” isn’t a terrible film, just terribly disappointing. The year’s most stacked ensemble and Wes Anderson’s jaw-dropping scenery can’t save this sedated sludge from overtly indulging in the same elements that nearly condemned “Isle of Dogs” and “The French Dispatch”, and in such burns out long before it reaches its designated path, leaving this the lone Anderson engagement that is all style and no substance.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+