95% Moonrise Kingdom

All Critics (132) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (125) | Rotten (6) | DVD (1)

The latest unadulterated delight from Wes Anderson, director of "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

The usual complaints and caveats about Anderson - he's precious, his characters have no grounding in the real world - can be made about Moonrise Kingdom, but so what?

Anderson and his actors are able to convey more genuine feeling through these devices than most filmmakers can with more-traditional means.

One knock against some of Anderson's previous efforts is that they're too clever - so clever, in fact, that the humanity gets sucked out of them. That doesn't happen here.

Anderson's best feature since Rushmore, in part because, like that film, it takes as its primary subject matter odd, precocious children, rather than the damaged and dissatisfied adults they will one day become.

There's no denying the extravagant pleasures "Moonrise Kingdom" affords as an erudite wish-fulfillment fantasy of empowerment and autonomy.

Anderson has trouble sticking the landing, but "Moonrise Kingdom" is in many ways the most satisfying flight he's taken us on in years.

"Moonrise Kingdom" takes place in a world where everything seems pleasantly faded, where people read crackly-covered library books rather than e-books, and where young people are allowed to be genuinely innocent.

A remarkable story, stopping to survey the author's superlative descriptions and attention to the tiniest fragments of heartbreak. It's a treat to watch unfold, sweetened gorgeously by Anderson's magical manner of thinking.

I loved every second of "Moonrise Kingdom."

Thoroughly well scripted and well-acted. May be the greatest work to date from one of the greatest directors working.

Moonrise Kingdom?s heartfelt search and rescue of a feel-good result provides a perfect, even musical counterpoint to its regimented summer camp.

This is a Wes Anderson film. It's gonna be quaint. It's gonna be wry. It's gonna look just like Anderson's other features. But is that such a bad thing?

A marvelously funny, wry script

Despite the star power on display here, the movie is not for everyone

Wes Anderson's best work in a decade, as he returns to the nimble territory precariously balanced between fairy-tale whimsy and genuine emotion

Moonrise Kingdom might be Wes Anderson's purest work yet -- a tender tale of longing and melancholy as seen through the eyes of a handful of people on an isolated (fictional) island off the coast of New England.

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