Asteroid City has all the trademark Wes Anderson elements:

Bright colors, maybe his brightest palette yet. Big cast of notable stars, though no Bill Murray this time. Lateral camera moves, not pans but sideways dollies (trucking is the film school term). And quirkiness galore. 

It is, however, a tedious slog. Have I ever checked my watch more during a movie screening than I did as Asteroid City was unspooling? Not that I can remember.

Unless you are a hardcore loyalist Anderson fan, you might NOT want to head to the movie house to see Asteroid City. Maybe check it out on cable or streaming in a few weeks and see what I mean. Or maybe watch some of those Youtube parody videos of trailers for classic movies if they were directed by Wes.

The framing device for Asteroid City, a black-and-white TV show hosted by a severe Bryan Cranston, appears to have been something Anderson and his co-writer Roman Coppola tacked on to add to the film’s run time. It DOES help cement the story’s setting in 1955 and it DOES give Anderson favorite Edward Norton an easy way to be part of the movie. But clever? Nope, not really. 

The story, set in a tiny town in the Southwest, not far from Monument Valley and not far from A-bomb test sites, centers around a celebration of the anniversary of an asteroid landing nearby which resulted in a giant hole in the ground. 

Among the actors who portray folks who come for the event or are already there are Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johanssen, Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell, Liev Schreiber, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon and more.

Along with the absence of Bill Murray, there’s a lack of cool and/or obscure tunes added to the soundtrack. The two train songs that run at the beginning and end of the film are fun but that’s about it for music (which has been a part of most Wes movies.)

Anderson’s movies generally have many disparate episodes which don’t necessarily fit neatly together but somehow coalesce to add to an underlying narrative. The happenings in Asteroid City and the characters seem more disconnected than usual and the framing device (the TV show) doesn’t help.

As I have enjoyed some but not all of Anderson’s prior efforts, I had high hopes for this one. But Asteroid City is, for me, a big disappointment. Rated PG-13.