We can mark for history the moment when we finally gave up on Wes Anderson. It was during the suggested intermission in his latest fragile confection, "Asteroid City," a movie without a plot or a point, a $25 million cupcake that struggles to make you laugh or care. It followed a really cute scene of a space alien interrupting a midnight astronomy event to steal the small boulder that gave the town its name. It featured one of the best sight gags of the movie. That, in turn, followed a turgid scene of genius adolescents playing a game of memorization, apparently so Anderson could show off.
Anderson made two-thirds of a mediocre movie last time out ("The French Dispatch"), and this one is all bad. I didn't think it would be possible for a director or a movie to make Steve Carell seem funnier than Jason Schwartzman. Even by Wes Anderson standards, this movie is fussier than you can imagine. He flattens backgrounds to make them look 2-D cartoonish -- as if they are flat backdrops, inspired by '50s postcards. He drops modern vending machines into the lobby of a 1955 inn. He incorporates a CGI roadrunner who beeps like in a Warner Bros. short. He assembles one of his trademark stellar casts, and no one looks like they are having a bit of fun. They speak robotically and draw attention to it. It looks like it was as painful to produce and take part in as it was to sit through.
Anderson nests this technicolor town (famous for being hit by an asteroid) into a black-and-white teleplay with some of the same actors and hosted by Bryan Cranston, channeling Rod Serling. I didn't care enough to figure out which story was nested inside which story, and I didn't stick around to find out. I walked out on Wes Anderson. I had zero qualms that I would be missing anything cool or entertaining.
I felt bad for the cast. Schwartzman's newly widowed dad talks through gritted teeth, even when he's not clenching a pipe. Scarlett Johansson mopes as a depressed starlet. Tom Hanks gets outplayed by little girls as the widower's father-in-law. People like Jeffrey Wright, Hope Davis, and Liev Schreiber stand around like furniture. The annoying kids talk a mile a minute. Jokes crash to the ground. Sight gags earn shrugs.
We might want to reconcile the fact that, while he has made some good movies since then, Anderson peaked about 20 years ago as the creator of clever little universes. The epitome of that is "Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," from 2004, where the filmmaker committed to a unique vision. But that movie came with fully fleshed-out (if quirky) characters and a compelling narrative. And genuinely talented actors were allowed to bring it all to life.
All of that is stripped away in "Asteroid City," which is as joyless as a planet-threatening impact event. This project is a devastating blow to the world of Wes Anderson, who might just have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
BONUS TRACK
A (final?) update on the ranking of Anderson's films.
- The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Rushmore
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Fantastic Mr. Fox
- The Darjeeling Limited
- Bottle Rocket
- The French Dispatch
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Isle of Dogs
- Asteroid City
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