Asteroid City (2023)

Wes Anderson's latest movie is a tangled mess.  Merely outlining the 'plot' should demonstrate that assessment.  The narrator (Bryan Cranston) states that Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) is a famous playwright.  His latest play, Asteroid City, follows a variety of people who happen to be in Asteroid City for a science competition.  During the festivities, an alien arrives and confiscates the famous asteroid for which the city is named.  A quarantine follows.  Mildly humorous antics follow.  The quarantine is lifted after a week and everyone leaves.  Throughout the play, there are breaks to show behind-the-scenes events or flashbacks to Conrad Earp's creative process, and so on.  To clearly separate these events from the main story, they are shown in black & white.

Augie is a photographer whose wife recently died.  He and his children will be living with his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) for awhile.  Augie's son, Woodrow (Jake Ryan), is part of the science competition.  Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) is a famous actress who views herself as a bad mother; her daughter is another competitor.  There are many other characters, but they are mostly here as background.  As usual for an Anderson film, most of the lines are delivered in something close to a flat monotone.  There is very little emoting.  Based on some of the behind-the-scenes footage and the budding relationship between Augie and Midge, it appears that he is on the mend from his wife's death.  Was that the story?  There was a lot of other stuff here that advanced that plot not in the least.  The playwright claimed the story was about infinity.  I must have missed that aspect.

The movie-play dynamic didn't work.  The set didn't work.  I liked the vibrant visuals, but the silly incomplete overpass was stupid.  I understand that he wants the audience to view this as a play rather than a movie, but that is being too clever by half.  Why do we have background of the play's director's marital issues?  The vending machines that offered virtually anything was amusing, but again beside the point.  It was like a clip show at times.  Oh!  This would be a great bit!  Let's put that in the movie!  Wouldn't it be funny if we had a police chase zip through the town every now and again?  Yeah, let's do that!  Let's do this routine of Augie's car breakdown with Matt Dillon as the mechanic.  Sigh.  Sketch comedy.

Despite a talented cast full of Oscar winners and nominees, this is no better than mediocre.  This is also the first Wes Anderson film in 27 years not to star Bill Murray; maybe that's the problem.  Watch The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou instead.  Only for the diehard fans of Wes Anderson.

Isle of Dogs

The movie opens with a prologue of a time long ago when the Kobayashi clan sought to wipe out the dog populations of Japan.  On the very day that the dogs were about to be wiped out, a boy samurai slew the leader of the Kobayashi clan and saved the remaining dogs who became pets.  In the present, dogs are everywhere and assailed by dog flu.  To prevent a potential leap from dog to human, all dogs are banished to Trash Island.

The story centers on a particular pack of dogs: Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Ed Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum).  They are all alpha dogs and thus all decisions are put to a vote.  Soon after they have won a fight with a different dog pack, Atari (Koyu Rankin) crashes on Trash Island in search of his dog, Spots (Liev Scheiber).  Most of the dogs take to him immediately but Chief - who has been a stray for the majority of his life - shows mostly disdain.  The growing relationship between Atari and Chief is extremely well done and the best thing about the movie.  That Atari wins over the misanthropic Chief is the heart of the movie.  Cranston does a brilliant job in bringing Chief to life and provides an emotional and convincing transition from a 'bad' dog to one that risks life and limb for Atari.

While Atari and the dogs seek Spots, Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) the American exchange student and cub reporter for the school paper untangles the machinations of the Kobayashi Clan's plot to avenge themselves on the dogs of Uni Prefecture.  This storyline is mostly uninteresting but does provide some background for Atari, setting him in the role of the modern version of the boy samurai of the prologue.

The movie is somewhat awkward in using English for the dogs, exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig), and a translator.  Though used to good effect a couple of times, it more often slows the movie because we hear both the Japanese and then the English translation.  On top of that, there are scenes that could have been cut or shortened.  It felt like a long movie though it was only an hour and 40 minutes.

 

Not the best Wes Anderson film but not his worst.  Enjoyable but nothing to rush out and see.