For all his naïvely-criticized sameness, damned if Wes Anderson doesn’t slightly reinvent being Wes Anderson for every movie he makes. The latest evidence? The charmingly blown-out dialogue and visuals in the trailer for his latest, Asteroid City.
A quarter-century after Anderson gave Max Fischer his first lead role, Asteroid City sees Jason Schwartzman fronting a preposterously stacked cast of comic actors stuck in the titular eccentric desert town with UFOs on the brain. Bill Murray may be sitting this one out, but at least Anderson assembled Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum to join Schwartzman in his latest carefully composed and curated period comedy—and he appears to have done so without a single treasure hunt or Cannonball Run!
Does it all look very posed with actors acting like wooden play dolls to enact Aderson’s oddball whims? Absolutely. But does it now also look like a 1950s postcard in every single shot? It does! Every shot! It’s pretty cool! It’s so thoroughly one-note in its design and over-stylization that it’s as if Zack Snyder was thoughtful.
Snyder, of course, isn’t, but we will rely on Wessy to give us another charming if twee confection when Asteroid City hits theaters June 16.
