Wes Anderson's 'Asteroid City' Review Thread

Rotten Tomatoes: 73% (11 reviews) with 8.50 in average rating

Metacritic: 78/100 (13 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second.

The trouble is there’s just not enough here to fully engage the viewer beyond the trademark aesthetics — no emotional pull or lingering feeling and too few genuine laughs. For a movie so curiously weightless it seems awfully pleased with itself, its moments of magic evaporating almost instantaneously.

-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

In its own offbeat way, Asteroid City is an Anderson patchwork of Cold War paranoia and American family values in all their often hypocritical glory. It is every bit as arch as his best work, while still managing to tug hard on the heartstrings.

-Geoffrey McNab, The Independent: 5/5

Like any movie by Wes Anderson, “Asteroid City” is the epitome of a Wes Anderson movie. A film about a television program about a play within a play “about infinity and I don’t know what else” (as one character describes it), this delightfully profound desert charmer — by far the director’s best effort since “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and in some respects the most poignant thing he’s ever made — boasts all of his usual hallmarks and then some.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: A

“Asteroid City” looks smashing, but as a movie it’s for Anderson die-hards only, and maybe not even too many of them.

-Owen Gleiberman, Variety

It looks amazing, of course, but it might well be the least involving movie he’s ever made, with an amazing cast providing little but momentary distraction.

-Steve Pond, TheWrap

As ever, there is little or no emotional content, despite the ostensible subject of grief. The movie rattles cleverly and exhilaratingly along, adroitly absorbing the implications of pathos and loneliness without allowing itself to slow down. It is tempting to consider this savant blankness as some kind of symptom, but I really don’t think so: it is the expression of style. And what style it is.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 4/5

The show-within-a-film conceit doesn’t really pay off; arguably, it complicates the work with little to show for it, and general audiences, as opposed to art film aficionados, will be baffled as to what’s going on. There is even one more layer to the proceedings that, arguably, is more of a bother than a plus. But otherwise, this is a fresh, original and disarming creation unlike anything else you might have seen with a degree of stylized storytelling that is notable and often exciting.

-Todd McCarthy, Deadline

Truly delightful. Wes Anderson leans into his trademark eccentricities for a trip to the desert that won’t win any converts but will keep the Anderson faithful content.

-John Nugent, Empire: 4/5

There has always been a method to Wes Anderson’s madness, but Asteroid City reminds you that there is also a madness to his method. And that, ultimately, is what makes him a great artist.

-Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

There is, to use tired modern parlance, a pleasant vibe to the film. It’s as if Anderson is turning his mind back on, switch by switch, after the cataclysms of the past few years. Suddenly his old pretensions feel welcome again; here, born anew, is the purpose of his particular (and occasionally vexing) style. It’s an oddly moving film, this bright and quite literally stagey curio involving an extraterrestrial. At its best, Asteroid City evokes the memory of what it was to first see a Wes Anderson film, surprised and delighted by its singular vision of life on Earth.

-Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Meta-puns and layers of art/reality mount, sometimes to playful ends, sometimes to faintly distancing effect. But there’s no doubting the invention and drollery on show, much less the subtle sincerity of Anderson’s questioning. As his characters ponder how to “do” life’s uncertainties, one answer offered is "trust your curiosity." As ever, Anderson’s curiosity guides him wondrously well here.

-Kevin Harley, Total Film: 4/5

That’s existentially melancholy stuff— a specific pigment of poignant sadness that Anderson hasn’t pulled out of his neatly-ordered toolkit before. And I’m not overstating the case. However, the minor problem of it all is while what Anderson is trying to say can be read across the sky like a beautifully glistening moonbeam; it does often lack the craterous depth of feeling we know he’s capable of when doing his best creative and emotional astrography.

-Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist: B

Suffice it to say, Anderson has swelled the ranks of his rep company even more. Best of all, Jason Schwartzman – now on his seventh Anderson movie – gets a juicy role for his favourite director. Seeing the two of them together again feels like perfect harmony.

-James Mottram, NME: 4/5

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PLOT

In 1955, students and parents from across the country gather for scholarly competition, rest, recreation, comedy, drama, and romance at a Junior Stargazer convention held in a fictional American desert town.

DIRECTOR/WRITER

Wes Anderson

STORY

Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola

MUSIC

Alexandre Desplat

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Robert Yeoman

EDITOR

Barney Pilling

RELEASE DATE

May 23, 2023 (Cannes Film Festival)

June 16, 2023 (limited theatrical release)

June 23, 2023 (wide theatrical release)

RUNTIME

105 minutes

STARRING

• Jason Schwartzman

• Scarlett Johansson

• Tom Hanks

• Jeffrey Wright

• Tilda Swinton

• Bryan Cranston

• Edward Norton

• Adrien Brody

• Liev Schreiber

• Hope Davis

• Stephen Park

• Rupert Friend

• Maya Hawke

• Steve Carell

• Matt Dillon

• Hong Chau

• Willem Dafoe

• Margot Robbie

• Tony Revolori

• Jake Ryan

• Jeff Goldblum

Submitted May 24, 2023 at 12:37AM by SanderSo47 https://ift.tt/e3mLMpG