Wes Anderson fans eagerly awaiting Moonrise Kingdom — his first directorial effort since 2009′s Fantastic Mr. Fox, and his first live-action feature since 2007′s The Darjeeling Limited — can officially banish any worries that the hipster-prep auteur has lost his touch. Following the film's world premiere at Cannes, the vast majority of reviews have been somewhere between "mostly positive" and "utterly glowing." As with any movie, there are the occasional naysayers, but even the less enamored seem to agree that Anderson diehards will find the filmmaker doing exactly what he does best here.
Co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom follows the chaos that erupts in a sleepy New England island town in the 1960s when two adolescents (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) decide to run away together. The top-shelf adult supporting cast includes Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, and of course, Anderson staples Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray. Read the early reactions after the jump.
If you've seen the trailer or any of the marketing materials, it'll come as no surprise that one aspect everyone agreed upon was the film's Wes Anderson-iness. As always, however, some reviewers tended to like his schtick more than others. Coming Soon, who wrote one of the rare out-and-out negative reviews, wondered if Moonrise Kingdom had anything to it but its essential Wes Anderson style:
Who knows whether Anderson is so aware his fans expect certain sensibilities he feels the need to play up to them constantly or if he really thinks this is what movie audiences want to see, but he'll always have plenty of A-list enablers on board to help do whatever he wants.[...] He throws so much non-sensical stuff at the weaker-than-normal script, trying to make any of it stick, that "Moonrise Kingdom" feels like a giant waste of money and a caché of squandered talent.
Even out of those who generally liked the movie, a few others wondered if Moonrise Kingdom would appeal to anyone outside the core audience of Anderson lovers. From Indiewire's B+ reaction:
There are diehard Wes Anderson fans and then there's everyone else. "Moonrise Kingdom," the idiosyncratic auteur's seventh feature, eagerly pitches itself toward that first group of audiences and ignores the rest. But if those open to Anderson quirks will find a rewarding experience littered with warmth and playful humor.
THR concurred:
This is a Wes Anderson film — more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others — that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch.
THR wasn't the only outlet who felt Moonrise Kingdom was a bit slight. The Guardian, which gave it four out of five stars, said:
It was a very charming, beautifully wrought, if somehow depthless film — eccentric but heartfelt, and thought through to the tiniest, quirkiest detail in the classic Anderson style.
But some critics found themselves liking despite being iffy on Anderson in general. Here's Screen Daily:
Those who have complained that Anderson makes the exact same twee, precious, mannered deadpan comedy every time out will have plenty here to further their argument, but this bittersweet bauble so confidently goes about its business that it's difficult to deny that Anderson knows his milieu and how to dramatise it eloquently.
And The Atlantic:
Its moments of transporting beauty and visual brilliance overcame my growing aversion to Wes Anderson's brand of ultra-stylized archness.[...] He's still a filmmaker teetering dangerously on the brink of terminal tweeness, but Sam and Suzy bring out Anderson's sincere side.
And Variety:
While no less twee than Wes Anderson's earlier pictures, "Moonrise Kingdom" supplies a poignant metaphor for adolescence itself, in which a universally appealing tale of teenage romance cuts through the smug eccentricity and heightened artificiality with which Anderson has allowed himself to be pigeonholed.
A few critics emphasized the perfect fit between Anderson's gentle, playful aesthetic and the kid-centric tale. Film School Rejects, in their A- review, wrote:
There is certainly an idea that Moonrise Kingdom is
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