Moonrise Kingdom was a 2012 film released in June that was met with generally above average reception from both critics and audiences, though the casual nature of said audience may be more refined when it comes to Anderson’s work. His artistic style and quirky tone has often left him outside of the casual viewing audience’s ballpark, yet still manages to produce films with great critical success like Fantastic Mr Fox, Isle of Dogs, The Grand Budapest Hotel and so forth. On a grander spectrum, Moonrise Kingdom seems to include all of his tropes and visual ques, yet the overabundance of said tropes seems to mask any other sense of enjoyability. Set in a fictionalised island, two 10 years olds named Sam and Suzy (played by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) decide to run away from home and live together, declaring their love for one another. Leaving behind a lot of confused people looking to bring them back home, including Suzy’s parents (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), the boy’s scout leader (played by Edward Norton), a disgruntled policeman (played by Bruce Willis) and a leader of social services (played by Tilda Swinton). With a strong cat and mouse gaming lasting the length of the entire island, the young couple try to escape their pursuers and find their way off the island. Moonrise Kingdom feels like an effective demo reel of every effective Anderson trope, yet nothing within it to make it function as an entertaining film. With minimal story, bland underacted characters, a very pretentious atmosphere and a very humor-lacking script, Moonrise Kingdom fails to produce a shred of memorable material.

A film has a very Wes Anderson like set-up, but not such much the structuring and handling of one. The narrative is including thin and very basic; two children run away, people try to get them back, hijinks ensues, etc. On its own, with enough decent comedy and clever visuals and writing, this set-up could have led to some fun moments, yet the movie is instead stuck on this horribly boring slow note. The film seems to be inspired by a lot of complex themes, emotions and various stories, even apparently being an allegory for Noah’s ark by the end of the film. While all of this is nice, symbolism doesn’t work as strong if you’re not invested in the people or world you create, and nothing about this world or these people are fascinating in slightest. The film’s slow pacing does not click with the weak narrative and since the world the film creates is not fleshed out well enough, there’s very little to latch onto while waiting for the movie to end. The grab of most Anderson film’s is that the basic cookie-cutter stereotype characters he creates are often made into extra fun tropes to bounce off of an even more insane dramatic world; it creates an interesting balance of being mellow and deranged at the same time. This film creates a relatively realistic world with realistic characters and mostly realistic issues, so the contrast doesn’t exist and therefore nothing feels wacky or unique because of the location’s lack of personality; it’s hard to gage whether these character’s actions are meant to be unrealistic or ironic, every joke in the film feels like that and it sours any chance of something sticking out. The themes about sexual growth, depression, juvenile mental health, and its call-back to the Genesis Flood Narrative are interesting elements but merely acknowledging them isn’t enough to say its a complex picture.

Another elements to Anderson’s movies are the immaculate cast that he puts in them. The cast for the film is full of a lot of memorable funny people that would no doubt help this film out a lot. However, the common problem with bad comedies surfaces here as well; if the material isn’t any good, there’s a very strong chance the actor will not be able to stand out and use their talents effectively. The acting from everyone in this movie has this very annoyingly dull uncaring feel to it, like they said all their lines half-awake and without any sense of urgency. The contrast could have worked better if the world was more crazy and insane and the normal people would be extremely relaxed in such a crazy environment, but without that its just watching boring people do boring stuff in a boring place. With no funny lines every being said and their characters essentially being as stale as possible, it doesn’t leave any impact. The stuff with the kids doesn’t offer anything nice or different, the two kids aren’t that good at acting, both are kinda unlikeable throughout the whole picture, they never feel like they’re actually in love as they share no chemistry, and as the focal point to the film, it really causes a bad stain overall. With names like Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, its literally a recipe for perfection with this type of film, yet none of are funny and some don’t even get that much screen-time. People like Norton and Swinton almost get a laugh yet never get the opportunity too, and people like Willis and Murray just feel lifeless and lost throughout the whole picture.

The film’s one saving grace is within its production design and cinematography. The shots in this movie are very well composed and incredibly clean and precise; the land shots feel like something right out of a painting, but its mixed with some great still shots and panning shots that are so steady and smooth that it never feels distracting or jerky. It has the grounded location and feel of an indie film but with the scale and cleanness of a big-budget movie, it leaves probably the only memorable thing about the movie. The production design has an interesting use of the color palette, in that the colors are distinct and noticeable, yet are strangely muted and soft, its leaves the colors feeling engrossed in the world and not overly poppy which would suck out some of the authenticity. The writing Is horribly forgettable and doesn’t even seem to focus on writing punch lines or even set-ups, just quirkiness. It seems to ride the thought that if the actors say something in an odd way, it will equal out a funny response, but that doesn’t work if the dialogue itself is so flat and forgettable. With that said though, they don’t say anything or smart yet with how the film is composed and paced, they really think they are smarter than they really are. The themes mentioned before are hinted slightly yet the film parades itself around as a challenging provocative film that has never tapped into these issues before and it comes across as really pretentious.

Moonrise Kingdom is a pretty forgettable flop that doesn’t reach the levels of accolades that it has been built up as. With some very nice cinematography being its real only saving grace, the other elements fail to grab even the barest elements of a comedy or even a quirky drama. Instead of taking a basic idea and stretching it out into a more complex idea-provoking, commentary-based film, it either lacks any notion of those concepts, or handles them so poorly and loosely that they fad into obscurity under its own mediocrity yet still pretending they are and its amazing because of it. Not worth a viewing even for some of the visuals, its been done much better in other films, even ones that Anderson has done himself. With no strong feelings of love, realism, and especially humor, Moonrise Kingdom is ironically one that never went above the sunset.