Smash presents you with the critique and review of ‘Asteroid City’, the most recent Wes Anderson film with a multi-star cast.
In music, in literature, and in this case, in the cinema, there are products that only the staunchest followers of an artist will understand and appreciate as the greatest of masterpieces. Asteroid City is a good example of this. The latest film by the American filmmaker Wes Anderson he has everything that has made him one of the most renowned directors of recent years.
- impeccable photography
- Ornately colored decorations
- A combination of drama and comedy
- A multi-star cast
But is this enough for you? Asteroid City get off the hook and make Anderson’s best list? I doubt it. And it is that it gives me the impression that the director of jewelry as rushmore, Moonrise Kingdom either The great Hotel Budapest he is repeating a formula that in this case fails to captivate us.
Saying what this production is about is somewhat complicated. To begin with, we see a writer (Edward Norton) who shows us the process of writing a story and everything that happens behind the scenes. On the other hand, the story is located in a town, Asteroid City, lost in the nothingness of the desert, where there are alien presences, experiments with atomic bombs are carried out and a scientific convention is held.
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This is the setting for this crazy story that has everything but that: a story that manages to catch us. It seems that Anderson turned on himself and in the end not even he knew the premise of his tape. Yes ok Asteroid City It moves along smoothly, often being bogged down by all sorts of situations that intermingle like a somewhat messy puzzle and dialogue that becomes tiresome, lacking in charm.
Perhaps the greatest charm of the film are the three little sisters whose interventions do manage to make us smile more than once due to their originality and particular vision of life and death. The rest of the stars, Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Margot Robbie, Rupert Friend, Jeffrey Wright, Maya Hawke, Liev Schreiber, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, shine but dullly. They seem more like an accessory than real actors.
There is a moment in the film in which one of the characters tells himself that he does not understand what is happening. The viewer shares the same impression. I don’t know if Wes’s intention was to lead us to this same unknown or it is that his tape advances in directions that are not entirely clear. In the desire to cover so much, Anderson ends up spreading his message; that yes, on a visual level, the tape is of indisputable beauty.
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The tape, of course, is not without its really funny, and even terrifying moments. The best example of this is the sequence in which an alien descends from a spaceship in Asteroid City to recover a meteorite found in a thousand-year-old crater. It is a wonderful sequence, from the beauty of the ship to the elegance of the alien, which stands out for its sinister and thin appearance.
What seemed to be one of the films that would shine this summer ends up being a tiring exercise, sometimes boring and very tedious. As said: a tape that the unconditional followers of Wes Anderson will praise. If this is the first time you are approaching the work of this director, it may discourage you a bit from continuing to explore it. In the end… a matter of taste.
SMASH Verdict: 3 stars out of 5
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