Asteroid City

Directed by Wes Anderson, Asteroid City follows an assortment of quirky figures, including Jason Schwartzman’s Augie Steenbeck, Tom Hanks’ Stanley Zak, and Scarlett Johansson’s Midge Campbell, as they find themselves quarantined within a small town after an alien makes an unexpected appearance. Filmmaker Anderson, armed with his own screenplay, delivers an almost prototypically oddball endeavor that remains hopelessly uninvolving for the duration of its running time, as the movie suffers from an arms-length atmosphere that’s compounded by its relentlessly (and infuriatingly) deadpan sensibilities and a complex, impossible-to-comfortably-follow narrative – with the latter made all-the-more exhausting by an impenetrable play-within-a-play (within-a-play!) structure. And although the picture admittedly does have its minor pleasures, with Robert Yeoman’s often eye-popping cinematography an obvious highlight, Asteroid City‘s mechanical, emotionless modus operandi ensures that it wears out its welcome long before arriving at its underwhelming climax – with the end result another distressing misfire from a once-promising filmmaker.

*1/2 out of ****