Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City reviews

Cloying whimsy is the perfect way to put it, that man only has one speed.

I know all directors have a certain style but all his movies are too similar. Maybe I haven't seen enough though.

Cloying whimsy?

Noooooo! Not ever.

Seriously, I was a bit of a fan until THE FRENCH DISPATCH: 2 hours of my life I would like back, please. I'm done.

Wes Anderson twee'd me out of any interest in his movies long ago.

Bright colors are over Wes

Nice review--I presciently said as much to a friend of mine when we saw the trailer: "Looks great, but I bet they forgot the characterization!"

OMG.

Even the trailer is numbingly dull, IMHO.

Wes Anderson = DOA

Scarlett Johansson is ugly as sin.

The very dark hair is not her friend.

ScarJo can be very appealing (sexy, funny) onscreen, but her face is always a bit..... common.

Cloying whimsy is all I get from anything from Wes Anderson. One of my least favorite directors ever.

Snobs. Looks like breezy light fare. Summer scented candle movie. Calvin Klein fragrance movie. You're expecting too much. Matt Dillon!

Why Tom Hanks? Who is this man constantly forced upon us?

With JASON SCHWARTZMAN again? MEHHHHHHH!!!!!

Why?

Space puke circling in rings around Uranus.

I saw it today and enjoyed it. As expected, the visual design was terrific and there was a nice blend of comedy and drama. Scarlett Johansson did a good job and she has a full frontal nude scene. Tom Hanks fit in with the cast well. But the real standout for me was Jake Ryan, the now 19-year-old actor (he turned 18 while filming) playing the teenage son of Jason Schwartzman’s character. I thought he was the heart of the movie.

Good. All his movies suck donkey dick.

I don’t think I’ve been able to finish one of his movies.

His early films were fantastic before he autistically climbed up his own bottom

His best film was his first, Bottle Rocket. Diminishing returns, ever since.

From the trailer it looks terrible

I haven't seen it since its theatrical release, when I was in my early 20s, so I MAY have become a touch more discerning, but I recall really enjoying The Royal Tenenbaums. But, yes, everything since has been stuck in the aforementioned cloying whimsy.

They invited Dylan Mulvaney to the premiere. I now have no interest in seeing it.

“I certainly have often thought of Harold Pinter,” says the Houston native about his muses, which have also included J.D. Salinger and François Truffaut. Pinter’s “a writer who has always inspired me. Samuel Beckett maybe in a more distant way, but Beckett through Pinter is one. The sparseness and abstractness of Pinter has always been a real inspiration for me.”

The Pinter influence on "Bottle Rocket" is off the charts.

Bottle Rocket was not particularly great. But his next two were phenomenal

Every movie he makes gets the same tepid reviews from "the critics" yet they all go on to become minor classics years after their initial release. He doesn't strive to make mass-market blockbusters. And that's not a bad thing.

The only thing that could make it worse would be if he cast that horrible Lumi gorgon in a role.

I thought the critics always loved his movies and that’s what kept him going, so this is a revelation to me.

It’s interesting that the only person who has anything positive to say about this movie is also the only one who’s actually seen it

The rest of us don't want to see it R29 because we've all seen one of his "films" before and we don't need to suffer through another one.

M. Night Shaymalan Syndrome.

I haven't seen it yet either, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.

[quote] The rest of us don't want to see it [R29] because we've all seen one of his "films" before and we don't need to suffer through another one.

Nobody’s forcing you to see it. Just don’t pretend that your opinion of the movie is equivalent to that of someone who has actually seen it.

I don't need to pretend, R33. My opinion's worth far more than yours. Your tastes in film, much like Andersen's films, sucks donkey dick.

Okay, I see. The troll has no real argument, so it resorts to insipid insults

Thanks for identifying yourself.

I stated my argument at R30, R35. Are the big words at my post too hard for you? Call your mommy down to the basement and she can help sound them out for you. Surely she'll be able to overcome her everlasting shame of squirting you out of her cooch and help you this one time.

Anderson sure manages to put together impressive ensemble casts.

Sorry r36. Once you’ve identified yourself as a troll, there’s no point in trying to have a conversation with you

R38, tell Mommy to type this: then why respond to R36?

Chat with you soon!!!

Yawn

Pity he gets $$$ thrown at him but Todd Solondz has to fight for the barest of production budgets.

Nice seeing you again R40/R38/R35!!!

Kisses! Chat with you soon, presh!!!!

I saw it yesterday, it is really bad. The story-within-a-story is just confusing and adds nothing. There are too many characters, and most of them have absolutely nothing to do. Jason Schwartzman and Steve Carell look so much alike that I kept getting them mixed up.

The sets are beautiful, but there is no story, none at all. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes at least twice and thought I missed very little.

To end on a positive note, it was a very hot day here yesterday, so 2 hours in an air-conditioned cinema was rather nice!

Some of the Wes Anderson movies from the later design-obsessed period are terrific, particularly MOONRISE KINGDOM. The trouble is that some of them are not even when they're incredibly visually aresting, like THE DARJEELING LIMITED and THE LIFE AQUATIC.

His problems are that he loves shaggy dog stories that go nowhere, and also that the actors he loves to work with are of highly varying talent. He seems to choose them based on his personal fondness for them rather than because of their abilities, and Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and (particularly) Owen Wilson may be lovely men but they are just not actors with wide ranges (Ed Norton, another of his favorites, is a fine actor, however, as is Tilda Swinton). The best performances in his films have usually been people who are not so much part of his regular repertory company: Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand in MOONRISE KINGDOM, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gene Hackman in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, Ralph Fiennes in THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL.

I wish this and Barbie was a double feature

Saw it yesterday and enjoyed it. His deadpan humor isn't for everyone but I love it. Not bored at all. I'd rather see something quirky than some monstrous big-budget action/superhero movie that bludgeons you constantly with noise and overblown action. There was a trailer for a new Tom Cruise Mission Impossible flick that looks like a perfect example of the kind of movie you can't pay me to go see any more.

Never liked any of his movies. Pretentious twaddle

I agree with you in some ways, r46. I actually thought while watching this yesterday that it was at least different from all the superhero/Marvel movies. The problem is that I don’t think it’s any better than them, just different. Anderson’s style is so consistent that his films just seem like another franchise.

At the end of this film, as I was leaving the cinema, I actually thought that I might stop buying my monthly cinema subscription card because there are so few films which interest me any more. I don’t have the patience for the latest Marvel, I have no desire to see Fast and Furious 265, and Anderson’s cutest-wutsey whimsy seems so passé. I really just want a film which makes me giggle or think, but very few of them seem to be made at the moment.

R48 / R48 - Out of curiosity, since you're still a regular film goer (I'm not, but am a film lover), and your review is what I feared would be the case with the new Wes Anderson film, what have you seen in the past year that you liked?

R49, to be honest, there haven’t been many films which I have enjoyed for a while, and there a few others such as Aftersun, which I have not seen yet. Most of those which I have seen have been pretty disappointing.

Of those I have seen over the past year or so, Babylon was worth watching. It a bit gross and over-inflated, but it at least seemed ambitious and kept my attention all the way through.

There are three which I Absolutely loved:

1. The Banshees of Inisherin (it’s beautifully acted, beautifully written and really unnerving in a strange way),

2. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande - I love Emma Thompson, and she has real chemistry with her gorgeous young co-star. The film has something to say too, and it’s pretty witty.

3. The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan. - this film is really what I want from cinema. It’s escapism, but fairly intelligent, and it looks beautiful. It’s an old-style swashbuckling story, but genuinely fun without being overblown like the Marvel nonsense.

I actually really enjoyed a few of the Marvel films but the latest Thor movie was so dull! It’s a shame because the previous Thor movie was genuinely funny.

76% on RT isn't that bad

I see what you mean, R48. I don't see Wes Anderson films very often. I can see why his style would annoy if you see too much of it. It was a welcome change for me. I noticed a couple people leaving in the middle of the film but I was happy and enjoyed it. I hardly ever go to the movies any more. The last movie I remember wholeheartedly enjoying at a movie theater was pre-Covid: 2019 Korean film Parasite.

Thanks, r50. I also completely loved Banshees of Inisherin. Wonderful, wonderful.

I'll watch the other two on your recommendation.

I saw this today and it is absolutely Wes Anderson’s worst film. The thing that kept popping into my mind is “Bad Woody Allen” or “Bad Robert Altman”. All the tics are there, it’s filled with celebrities and it’s just absolutely wretched. The Woody Allen equivalent would be “Celebrity” and the Robert Altman equivalent would be “Pret à Porter.”

Also, I don’t know quite how to phrase this, but it seems Wes Anderson deliberately tried to make an “Autistic Film”. If that makes any sense. A good version of an “Autistic film” would be ‘Triangle of Sadness” or “The Lobster.” This is the worst attempt at one I’ve ever seen.

This is just conjecture but…

Woody Allen’s films took a precipitous drop in quality when Robert Greenhut or Jean Doumanian no longer produced them. In sequence he made four of his worst films, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else and Melinda and Melinda.

Wes Anderson’s films were all produced by Scott Rudin until his downfall. It’s entirely possible Rudin knew how to shape Anderson’s material into a better film. This movie is completely unfocused and lethargic.

R43

[quote] I actually fell asleep for a few minutes at least twice and thought I missed very little.

I had to get a Coke from the lobby about halfway thru because I was certain I was going to fall asleep

I hope you enjoy them, r53. Do post here, whether you love/hate them.

Another I really loved last year was Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. It’s such a dreamy, humane little film, beautifully shot and so evocative of its time and place. I left the cinema with that lovely feeling a great film can give you, in which I felt as if I had just woken out of a dream. I know that sounds rather “Mary!”, but I’m glad there are still some films like that.

[quote] Seriously, I was a bit of a fan until THE FRENCH DISPATCH: 2 hours of my life I would like back, please. I'm done.

I’m normally a Wes Anderson fan (MOONRISE KINGDOM is one of my favorite movies by any director) but ASTEROID CITY was a real disappointment to me.

The visual elements are fun at first - but there really is no substance in this one. Just his artifice.

That's an interesting theory, r55, if you mean his downfall/inflection point starting with The French Dispatch

I was surprised by how much i enjoyed it. The look of it was astonishing, and the actors he brought in with his regular repertory company (Ed Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, none of whom were bad, and Tilda Swinton, who is always fine) were terrific: Scarlett Johanssen gets to play a role very similar to that she played in "Hail, Caesar!" (a completely deadpan Golden Age movie star), and once again she was hilarious in it.

For those who saw it in a theater, did anyone else experience it was a laughless audience?

The only laughter was at the appearance of the stop motion alien.

I watched in the theater with an audience and there were plenty of chuckles especially around the three little girls. I think it's a moving movie but I don't think the framing device worked as it does in French Dispatch and Grand Budapest Hotel. It doesn't feel integral to the main story of Asteroid City-- I don't need the magic of his artifice explained, I don't know.

Also wonder if this crossed anyone’s mind because it’s not a widely seen movie

But the 2019 movie “The Vast of Night” had a very similar framing device in which the central action of the movie existed within a made up tv show (maybe it was a radio show) from the 1950s and the movie would exit and reenter the story at intervals. Of course this was, for this movie, an obvious allusion to Wells’s War of the Worlds broadcast.

Anyway, it seemed like Anderson maybe copied this outright? There are several cues throughout the film which established his familiarity with the genre, for example using a very specific music cue that was integral to the plot of Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!”

Hmmm. Wes Anderson should have just remade Mars Attacks. That would have been hilarious.

r64, I also thought of "The Vast of Night" while I saw this, although that was a (thoughtful) horror movie and this had no horror elements to it, except for the three little girls always wanting to be compared to witches (which always made me laugh).

This is the first movie where I was ever attracted to Adrien Brody--his body looked hot in that tight white t-shirt.

If the entire movie was just about Asteroid City and not the stupid play I would have enjoyed it so much more.

Got my fingers crossed for Theater Camp and Oppenheimer now.

Agree with R68, it was confusing to me. A whole movie based on Asteroid City would have made more sense. Visually entertaining though.

How much of the movie is Scarlett in?

I am not a fan and unfortunately this film did nothing to convert me. The play within a film was unnecessary to the plot and very distracting.

He’s just too cutesy for me, I guess. I kept reading how the movie was a meditation on grief in some way but I don’t think that theme works well with all the whimsy.

I am not a fan and unfortunately this film did nothing to convert me. The play within a film was unnecessary to the plot and very distracting.

He’s just too cutesy for me, I guess. I kept reading how the movie was a meditation on grief in some way but I don’t think that theme works well with all the whimsy.

Loved, loved loved this movie. His best and most emotional in years. Not surprised to hear the gays who have active threads devoted to Netflix shows can’t really “get” it. What the hell is so hard to follow about the play within a play format? They even change colors!

Contrived, tedious, twee and so self-important.

The gays should salivate over the Mid-Century decor.

I also really appreciated the many references to mid-century theatre - Tennessee Williams/Thornton Wilder, Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg analogs among them. Ed Norton and Jason Schwartzman made a shockingly hot pairing - to me at least. Frankly, the scene between them was much hotter than all of these other (hetero) “love” scenes Wes Anderson has directed. Schwartzman in general was really doing it for me in this movie, I never found him attractive before.

Also, I would never like to hear the words “twee” and “self indulgent” used as criticisms of Anderson again. Cheap and repetitive!

Better than the French Dispatch. But that’s not saying much.