Oh, Wes Anderson. I guess I’m just one of those that just don’t ‘get’ your movies. I mean everything was there. The structure, the setup, the clash of the adults versus children, and the big finale, but I just can’t get into your quirky style, man. The story of Moonrise Kingdom is that a 12 year old boy played by Jaren Gilman is smitten a by a girl at a play. The girl is Suzy, played by Kara Hayward. He spots her out of all the other girls, tracks her down and they fall in love. They write to each and agree to run away together. The only problem is that they are on a this remote island in New England. So essentially, they are running with nowhere to go and are guaranteed to get caught.

The scout leader, played by Edward Norton sees that his scout is missing and talks to Bruce Willis who is like the chief of police on this tiny island. Eventually, they piece together that the boy and girl are together so they get the girl’s parents involved played by Frances McDormandand  and Bill Murray. Bill Murray was the only highlight of the movie for me. Like Emma Stone says in “Zombieland” he just makes me laugh every time I look at him.

I didn’t really like any of the characters in this movie mainly because of the dialogue, especially the boy. He seemed like Wes Anderson typing out how he thinks a young boy in love would act. I don’t know, Wes Anderson’s characters never seem real to me. People don’t act that weird! Perfect example is when Edward Norton’s character finds out the boy is gone he says “Jiminy Cricket, he flew the coop!” The whole theater laughed and laughed. I almost walked out. Like really? That’s funny?

It’s cute and romantic if you can dig your way through the quirk and the opening is brilliant where it looks like a dollhouse but turns out to be a real house. That was cool.

2/5 Stars