Moonrise Kingdom

I have to say that this time the whole is less than the sum of its parts. In Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson works everything (everything that the eye can see) to the tiniest detail, which is nice and I appreciate it, but the charm of the story gets drowned under all that heavy and refined splendour. Visually, it’s beautiful – it was a lot of fun to pour over each scene and notice how Anderson moves with the camera (the opening credits!) – but I never got into the story and it didn’t affect me at all on an emotional level. All of Anderson’s films are standoffish, but you can find in them places to feel sad or moved… but here I missed them. The same applies to his characters, they are all (very) weird, but this time I missed the vitality I felt in Mr. Fox, Zissou and others. In Moonrise Kingdom I only found that vitality in Bill Murray’s character (the night scene in the bed), who was given very little space. Immediately after watching it, an unenthusiastic 80%, but it needs to lager a couple of days. (19.07.2012)

Sam and Suzy come up with a masterpiece reputation, but they convince me of what I suspected a long time ago. When Anderson talks about family relationships, I am much happier than when he relies fully on nostalgia in coming-of-age stories. That's why I continue to smile with The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, or the underestimated Darjeeling Limited, and on the other hand, a few things bother me about Moonrise Kingdom, which moodily joins forces with Rushmore. All the usual shyness and elusiveness suddenly seem too deliberate for me, and the dialogues are always slightly overdone, to make Wes's typical moods easier to recognize. Bruce Willis, meticulous Edward Norton, and perpetually serious Kara Hayward work perfectly, but even they did not convince me to go on this road trip again. (16.10.2012)

Wes Anderson lives in a strange world full of strange and crazy people. It seems a bit as if his films had eaten a ton of mushrooms before the screening, and I watched the rain alternating with cloudy weather. And that’s when the moon comes out. Anyway, I have to say plainly that I expected a little more, mainly because of the great cast who appear in the film. That included both my favorite Bruce Willis and, on the contrary, Edward Norton, with whom I never know what to think, as well as the director’s staples like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, who are always joy to watch. I didn’t have a problem with the actors; what was worse was the storytelling and the scouts, who seemed to have crawled out of the factory for the absolute. It was nice, but it was weird and that’s why the three stars are just right. (04.01.2013)

Wes Anderson is a unique character who you don't see in world cinema too often. He always manages to surprise me, whether positively or negatively. Moonrise Kingdom is supposedly heavily inspired by his own childhood, and in that case, I wouldn't want to be his father or scout leader. Just as Miloš Forman became a role model for firefighters, Anderson has become one for scouting. Moonrise Kingdom is a film about children, love, determination, and bad weather. This film about rebellion against the adult world and the journey to fulfill a first love resonated with me. So far, this has been my most delightful encounter with Wes Anderson's work. The director's sense of absurdity, irony, and nonconformity definitely triumphed here. Overall impression: 95%. (26.04.2018)

Anderson's scout sale - contrived, copied from previous deeds, atypically unfinished (so many ideas simply just fade out), and more than anemic in terms of the storytelling. I accept the poetry of the first loves and boy's camping, but I expect more from Wes than the amusing shallowness, which mainly turns into a total spasm in the end. (07.07.2012)