REVIEW - MOONRISE KINGDOM

Moonrise Kingdom is without a doubt one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

Is it perfect? Far from it.

Did I see the ending coming a mile away? Yep.

Is it Wes Anderson’s best film? Nope.

Is it even in the top three? Probably not.

The plot of Moonrise Kingdom is fairly straightforward. A troubled youth played interestingly by Jared Gilman, in a debut role, goes AWOL from his scout troop, hooks up an equally troubled local girl and the pair takes off into the woods on a journey of young love.

I’ve been a fan of Wes Anderson’s work for a long time now and everything you might expect from a movie with his name above the title is on display. While that’s certainly a good thing, it’s also a bit of a determent.

Before I go on a bit of mini-rant, let me just preface the whole thing by once again making it abundantly clear that I am a massive fan of Wes Anderson and his work. I am. Really. Massively. The guy is talented, no bones about it. He has an original voice, a unique outlook, a talent for mixing drama and comedy, and in my humble opinion the guy hasn’t yet made what I would consider under any circumstance to be a bad film.

Dude’s bonkers great.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel like he’s beginning to repeat himself.

As much as I enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom and its lovably wacky characters, and as much as I loved the performances of Edward Norton and Bill Murray, and Kara Hayward as Suzy, it’s tough not to feel like I’ve seen it all before. With every film Anderson’s backgrounds get more stylized and his camera movements more predictable. He’s moving in the wrong direction and he needs very badly to loosen up just a smidge before it goes too far. Things didn’t feel this neat and tidy, and properly packaged with a cute little bow in Rushmore and they certainly didn’t in Bottle Rocket. There was a roughness to those films. Every shot wasn’t set up to look like a little girl’s tea service. When Max walked down and alley in Rushmore he was mostly just walking down an alley. He wasn’t dancing down an out of place cobblestone road painted by a dude with a twirly Salvador Dali mustache. Very slowly Wes Anderson seems like he’s becoming a slave to his own visual style, and that worries me just a little bit.

I still liked this movie though.

Despite my gripes and the sour hints of what might become of the career of its director, Moonrise Kingdom is an extremely solid, well-made piece of work. Most of the jokes land, the majority of the emotional moments work splendidly, and the sweetness of it all is just off kilter enough to satisfy the art house crowd and keep the rabble-rousers away.

It’s good stuff.

Also, “I love you but you have no idea what you’re talking about” – that line plays so amazingly well.

If you’re a fan of Wes Anderson’s previous work you’ll like this one as well. I don’t see how you couldn’t. If you’ve always hated the guy and you can’t make sense of his weirdo characters and even more weirdo sense of humor, you should probably just keep the line moving because there’s nothing for you to see here.

I think Tyler Perry might be dressing up like Madea again three theaters over.

Give that one a try.

-Steven