Most people are not ambivalent about Wes Anderson. They either love him or hate him. I understand both positions. There have been a few films of his I quite like (RUSHMORE, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL), but most of them have left me rather cold, feeling like exercises in art direction over storytelling, trying to prove to the audience how clever their auteur creator is. I thought that THE FRENCH DISPATCH was practically a parody of Wes Anderson films, but that movie is a Frank Capra flick compared to ASTEROID CITY, a movie that was utterly incapable of wresting human emotion from me, despite some sledgehammered attempts that just get lost under another weighted blanket of idiosyncratic visuals, a needlessly-complicated framework, and too many distracting cameos. Honestly, the day after watching this movie, I could barely remember a thing about it, other than how exhausted it made me.
Meanwhile, superhero fatigue continues with THE FLASH, a movie I actually planned to see in the theater, but ended up waiting for streaming. Thankfully. Because, while not the worst DCEU movie, it’s still mostly visually bloated and full of head-scratching narrative choices (why exactly was Keaton’s Bruce Wayne living like a dirty hermit in a dilapidated Wayne Manor? Because, crime ended? Hah?). Certainly, an unpleasant lead (times TWO!), both on and off-screen, didn’t help, while an underdeveloped Supergirl just felt like a missed opportunity. I did think (no spoilers) the conclusion was a novel shift from the usual overblown third act of most of these films (although the terrible CGI cameos from beloved DC movie characters of the past just made me wince), but it wasn’t enough to lift this out of the morass that is/was the DCEU. Still, I was kind of surprised at how poorly this movie did, I thought that the presence of Michael Keaton’s Batman would’ve been enough to get some nostalgic nerds in the seats. Shows what I know.
Originally posted on social media, Aug. 17, 2023
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