Jelly Donut

As a huge fan of some of Wes Anderson's movies (notably Rushmore and Bottle Rocket) and not such a big fan of others I was cautiously hopeful that I would enjoy Asteroid City. A few minutes in it appeared the stage was set for it to be a success. The scenery is spectacular, the characters are appropriately quirky, and the storyline seemed to be a good vehicle to tell a unique and interesting story. However by about 30 minutes in I started to feel my optimism turning to disappointment. I won't spoil the plot but let's just say the construction of the movie was completely disjointed and erratic. The whole "behind the scenes" aspect was a capricious failure. I noticed they left that part entirely out of the the trailer. I found myself wishing they had done the same with the movie itself. Perhaps then they could have spent more time telling a somewhat cohesive story that takes place entirely within the town. There are some interesting characters, most of whom were very well acted. Why not spend more time developing those characters, and thus the story itself, instead of going off on tangents that don't seem to add anything to the plot? I kept thinking "maybe this is funny if you have an acting background" but unfortunately I don't and it wasn't. I give it two stars because of the amazing scenery and several strong performances however this one will go down in my book as another lost opportunity. Wes Anderson's catalog has tremendous upside, including one of my favorite movies ever, however with each successive miss his overall rate of success continues to plummet. Two thumbs down