Review of Asteroid City (2023) by Saucyninja007 — 23 Jun 2023

"Asteroid City" is a step-up from "French Dispatch" but still one of the weakest offerings from Wes Anderson. The signature style is there but - unlike with Anderson classics like "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" - there is a noticeable lack of heart. The characters in "Asteroid City" don't feel like people. Instead they feel like side-characters or puppets in a Wes Anderson doll-house, delivering their lines in the Wes Anderson style - robotic, sarcastic and smug - that comes off tedious instead of charming in this instance. After watching "Asteroid City", I wondered why half of the characters were even in the story (the teacher and student characters immediately come to my mind). It is a shame that the plot in "Asteroid City" fails to generate any momentum. This review doesn't have any plot spoilers but honestly I do not know what I could even spoil since nothing meaningful happens. There are some mildly comical scenes here and there but nothing truly engaging. The framing device of "Asteroid City" is unnecessary, disorienting, and indulgent: the audience (us) watches actors play actors in a play while at the same time watching said play unfold as a movie. What purpose does this ultimately serve? I could not find one. Overall my opinion of "Asteroid City" becomes less favorable the more I think about it. The film treats the unique style as the focal point whereas Wes Anderson's betters films use the same unique style to tell stories that have characters that change in meaningful ways and connect to the audience. I hate having to rate "Asteroid City" so low because I would rate many of the director's films as 8/10 or higher.

Short version of my review: pick any other Wes Anderson film at random and there is a 90% chance you will enjoy that film more than "Asteroid City".