Moonrise Kingdom: Review By thedude-abides

Jul 5th, 2012 by thedude-abides
Anderson makes the most of his taut, 94-minute runtime through the use of snappy dialogue, trademark 2-D set design, and two lovable main protagonists who will dance their way right into your heart.
  • OVERALL
    3.0
    WORTHY
  • Story
  • Acting
  • Directing
  • Visuals
We're officially at the year's mid-way point, and 2012's been filled with its share of disappointments. In a day in age when the number of quality releases each year are extremely bottom heavy for the sake of awards potential, going to the movies has become less enjoyable and more like an excuse to beat the heat. Enter Wes Anderson.

It's hard to imagine an independent film working its way out of limited release status in less than a month to take critics and audiences by storm in the heart of the summer blockbuster season. Crazy though it may seem, that's exactly what Wes Anderson and Moonrise Kingdom have been able to accomplish.

In his first film since The (literally) Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore) leads an oddball ensemble of quirky characters in a way The Avengers could only dream of. Rest assured, there won't be any reboots here.

When a Khaki Scout named Sam Shakusky (played by Jared Gilman -- give him his Oscar now!), and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward), a local New England girl, go missing in the summer of 1965, a search and rescue party is underway to bring the children home to safety days before (what history will prove as) the most devastating storm of the second half of the twentieth century rains down upon the community.

Scout Master Ward (a much welcomed Edward Norton) heads the search, who deputizes the rest of the Khaki Scouts under his command to comprise the search party and bring the AWOL Sam Shakusky back to base. But a word of warning to all those would-be Rambos: He's armed, and extremely resourceful. With his girl by his side, and the pump-action pellet rifle he lifted before blowing camp on his back, Sam's not going to be taken easily.

The love triangle that ensues between Suzy's parents (Bill Murray and Francis McDormand) and Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) serves as a nice subplot, but this story's about the kids. With his former, fellow Khaki buddies hot on their trail, Sam leads his sweetheart into the New England wilderness in hopes of escaping the world that won't let them be together.

Hank Williams's Kaw-liga is a nice touch to go along with Sam's Davy Crockett foxtail and manly survival skills. And Suzy Bishop's Sunday school shoes make her an ideal candidate for the occasional nude portrait as a change of pace to the more conventional landscapes Sam is accustomed to painting for her. Let's face it, these two square pegs fit perfectly together, and nothing or no one is going to keep them apart.

In a day in age marred by perpetual reboots, a shameless string of theatrical 3-D rereleases, and the never-ending retelling of classic works of movie art, Anderson is a much needed breath of fresh air. Further proving why you don't need a hundred million dollar budget to have a successful film on your hands. Sometimes a good story and a little originality go a long way.

In this case, Anderson makes the most of his taut, 94-minute runtime through the use of snappy dialogue, trademark 2-D set design, and two lovable main protagonists who will dance their way right into your heart. One thing's for sure: If Moonrise Kingdom isn't the best film of 2012 thus far, it's certainly the cutest.

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Comments (61)

  1. Nicholaus XX

    @thedude-abides -- Of course. Easily one of the best films of 2012.

    4 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  2. thedude-abides

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx Should I plan on seeing this in your top-10 films of 2012?

    4 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  3. thedude-abides

    @corey Just saw your comment. She looks like the 12-year old twin of a girl at my work, lol.

    10 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  4. Corey W.

    You can't really compare these characters to comic-book characters who've been famous for decades :P

    Just got back from seeing this one. I thought it was a good movie. I couldn't stand the girl though. Not her acting skills, just her character in general.

    10 months agoby @coreyFlag

  5. thedude-abides

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx Yes, and I greatly appreciate it! Only one more comment and I break my previous record (Drive)!

    10 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  6. Nicholaus XX

    @thedude-abides -- I hope we showed our appreciation by highly contributing to the comment column. With exactly 56 comments(and possibly more on the way), I'd say so. ;)

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  7. thedude-abides

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx@ejk1 Lol. I f*cking love you guys.

    11 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  8. Nicholaus XX

    @ejk1 -- Never mind. The Avengers project might've been risky, but the film itself wasn't. At that point, there was way too much hype for it to fail. Anticipated films don't fail. So, yeah..

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  9. ejk1

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx There was no bias in my last remark. Just proof that there was great risk in what Marvel did by going forward with The Avengers. This whole thing started when you asked me how The Avengers was a risky project. They put there own characters up as collateral (not to mention all of that money they took out on loan). Yes, it all worked out for them, but to say it was inevitable is hindsight. One GL type film, and Marvel characters belonged to who, Merrill Lynch? Like I said in the beginning, The Avengers was a risky undertaking from the very beginning.

    11 months agoby @ejk1Flag

  10. Nicholaus XX

    @ejk1 -- What could I possibly say at this point without getting a biased remark from you?

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  11. ejk1

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx@thedude-abides@dan1 Like I said. Risk:

    http://blastr.com/2012/05/the-massive-risk-marvel-t.php

    11 months agoby @ejk1Flag

  12. thedude-abides

    @dan1 Lol. No worries, man.

    11 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  13. Sean

    @dan1 I accept your Apology :) .

    11 months agoby @themoviefanaticFlag

  14. Nicholaus XX

    @dan1 -- I'm all ears. I heard about that, I just never saw it. I was reading his reviews, but all I saw were people insulting him and telling him to review something else. Needless to say, it made no sense to me.

    That's only because I felt like he didn't want to be tagged. If I knew he(and others) were going to get the wrong impression, and it was going to create such a backlash, I would've @mentioned him. That may sound odd, but there it is. That's the thing, though. If I had more to say(besides calling him Capt. Obvious), I would've @mentioned him. I didn't know calling someone Capt. Obvious was talking sh*t, all right?

    All right, I'm all for it. I'll watch what I say to you, and this won't happen again. I'm actually surprised that incident left such a terrible outcome between us, mainly because that was our only argument/disagreement(?). Again, I'll do my best.

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  15. Dan

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx Whatever. I want to put this stupid long standing feud to rest. But before that, I want to point out a few things to you. @themoviefanatic had been coming around MW before you, and was obscenely obnoxious about his Pirates movies, and would be painfully obvious with virtually anything and everything he typed. So myself and a bunch of other users picked on him about it, and I gave him the moniker of Captain Obvious, which others have picked up on. I admit it was bully-like behavior and I was certainly the ring leader, and for that I apologize to him. I don't have to apologize, it's the F*CKING internet, but there it is.

    As for your 'hypocrit' statement with me defending @ejk1 after you called him the same name, the only reason I said anything is you purposely didn't tag him while insulting him, and the guy is my friend. I take up for my friends when i feel something is bullsh*t. It was a p*ssy move on your part. I don't care that you called him Captain Obvious, of all people, I think that insult is hilarious at times, it was just the way you did it. Man up and talk your sh*t to people's faces.

    Now, having said all that, lets just forget about this sh*t once n for all. There are plenty of other sh*tbags that frequent MW, you're clearly intelligent, so choose to not be like them.

    11 months agoby @dan1Flag

  16. Nicholaus XX

    @dan1 -- My bad, man. I didn't mean to miss-tag you, and I just found out I did exactly that after clicking on the name. I'm not even lying, I forgot the 1.

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  17. Dan

    I knew I'd come back to this review to @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx talking sh*t without tagging me properly. That was what I took issue with, o keyboard warrior. You really are a douchebag. We were even having a decent conversation for once.

    Sorry @thedude-abides...

    11 months agoby @dan1Flag

  18. Nicholaus XX

    @ejk1 -- What's this review about? Oh, wait.....

    I named those "two" films as an example, not necessarily in general. You said a movie couldn't be bad and make that much, and I showed you something that contradicted the aforementioned statement. You just proved my point! You used such snarly sarcasm, only to make yourself look like a complete ass. Twilight is a perfect case of my example, and I thank you - from the bottom of my heart - for mentioning it.

    That wasn't a debate, good sir. And no, it wasn't about a film. You made a "joke" about us being miserable because of the MTV Movie Awards(or something like that). I then asked how so, and then you pulled it being a "joke" out of your ass. Ha ha? Any way, @cupid made it clear that your joke was something along the lines of Capt. Obvious(which I then pointed out), and then you settled for the "humor schmuck" form of name-calling. The "incident" ended after that.

    A day or two later, I see @ghostman fighting with Sean, again! I then reassure Sean that he is not the only one that holds the cape, and that you're borrowing it(or something along those lines). @dan chose to be a hypocrite, and call me out on it(you know you've done the same thing). Time and time again, I've seen @dan stick his nose into places where it doesn't belong, and I then proceeded to call him out on it. One thing led to another, and then you showed up. You then seemed very offended by such a little thing, and made a big deal out of it. I have no clue what happened after that.

    Very sad, and very lame you say. You just indirectly insulted one of your other friends; bravo! Others? @ghostman assumed I was passive-aggressive after I called him out on arguing with Sean over, and over, and over again. Yeah, the same guy that called me a douche over pointing out the flaws in "Easy A", lol. I don't ever remember him calling me an *sshole, or anything of that sort. So, let's get that out of the way. And then some random guy(that barely knows me, and forgets recent incidents), randomly says "Nobody likes you, just saying". Um, okay? Yeah, so much for "others".

    You find me to be irritating? Likewise, buddy. You finding me to be irritating upsets me? Where did I say, or even imply that? Again, you're being delusional and/or assuming, making an ass out of yourself. Nicely done! We all have opinions, buddy. You do that. ;)

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  19. ejk1

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx

    "I just named two mediocre movies that made over a billion dollars, and apparently got repeated viewings."

    Oh...okay. Yes, two films definitely puts your argument over the top. Yep two out of a total of twelve films that have topped a billion. But...out of those twelve, three films released in December, the beginning of Hollywood's dead period, one in March, traditionally the middle of Hollywood's dead period. In other words, there was no competition for the foreseeable future (not weeks, but months; the top two each held the #1 spot for months because of the dearth of competition). Another, one of the two you mentioned, actually had to be re-released twelve years later with the attraction of 3D to move past that billion dollar goal. The others were all sequels; two of which were the capstones to beloved franchises (we assume). The others were TDKR and Pirates 2 & 4. Now here's where it gets interesting. DMC was riding the great momentum of Black Pearl, which gained over $654 million at the box office; sequels usually do better because of expectations, so this is normal. OST made it's money for a myriad of reasons--Depp, 3D, it was different from AWE, etc. But also keep in mind that AWE took in $963 million, which kind of helps your argument in that a mediocre film made a lot of money, but it's still short of 1 billion. So, the order of those filmss, from least to most, reads 1,3,4,2. The first film in the franchise made the least money. That's normal. Now let's look at those films that lead up to The Avengers. The highest point is Iron Man 2, which took in $624 million. Thor, the next film out, took $449 million, followed by Cap's $369 million. Do you see a trend here? The B.O. takes are declining, not ascending. Those films didn't set up The Avengers to be the behemoth it became; that was the work of the Disney/Marvel promo dept (why do you think we had all those Avengers stories on MW for the months leading up to the film?). And all of that cost extra money. And gave The Avengers to an unproven director. And tons of fan apprehension, which can even be seen in forums here. So there were definite questions about how profitable the film was going to be, which leads to risk.

    " It doesn't matter if the movie was good or not, it would've still made over a billion dollars!"

    Well, I'm so glad you cleared that up. I wasn't sure, but you set me straight. It doesn't matter if the "event" films are good or bad, because they are guaranteed to reach the billion dollar mark. The studios that produced Twilight, The Hunger Games, the Spider-Man films, etc. are rejoicing at your declaration. Their films are all about to get a bump in B.O., for no other reason than they are guaranteed a billion dollars, no matter how good or bad. You declared it. Glad that's settled.

    The rest of your posts are just nonsense. I referenced your age once, and then stopped because to continue doing so would have been degrading to my friends on MW in your same age bracket. I've called you ignorant a few times, and an arrogant little prick, but 1) unlike you, I say it to your face, figuratively speaking, and 2) at times, I think you're an ignorant, arrogant little prick. Yes, and I know, you're intelligent. You have the ability to make reasoned arguments. But there are times when things are clearly over your head. The last debate or whatever you want to call it was the perfect example. I made a comment to you and @thedude-abides about a film I knew you two would hate to hear about. He laughed, you turned it into an issue because you didn't get the joke. And then you tried to save face, but by then it was too late, and and was almost over when you decided to insult me basically behind my back (in a very sad and lame way, I might add), and guess what? I'm not even the one that took you to task for that, dude. @dan1 didn't like it, and called you out on that. And then it was revealed that I wasn't the only one that thinks that way about you. Others think you're a pretentious *sshole. And that's not my fault. I'm not controlling what others think of you, you are by the way you present yourself here. As far as not taking your points into consideration, I take everything I read here on MW into consideration, including your words. I find you to be irritating. It clearly upsets you; you're previous post illustrates that. But I really don't care. I have an opinion, I'm gonna say it. You disagree, that's fine. You tag me and state your case, and maybe it'll be different. It probably won't. You could always just state your opinion and leave my name out of it. There's a really good chance, like 95%, that I'm not going to respond.

    11 months agoby @ejk1Flag

  20. Nicholaus XX

    @skywise -- It's not necessarily frustrating as it is annoying. I don't have an issue with him, but with his arguments. Instead of taking my points into consideration(in all prior cases), he dismisses them, tells me to get over myself(in this case), and resorts to calling me out on my age, and saying how he is "much older" = wiser(?). I'm not trying to play the sympathy note, but it's pretty pathetic, if you ask me. I get called a "schoolkid", and everything is fine and dandy. But, I call him Capt. Obvious, without @mentioning him, and all hell breaks loose.

    Nemesis? Hm. I would say it depends on the context. It's one of those Call of Duty(video game) nemesis tags; you have no issue with the actual player, but competitively, they're the one that kills you the most. That's the best analogy I can come up with.

    Oh, and ignore the rant.

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  21. skywise

    @thedude-abides ahh that makes sense. And it matches the tone of your review a bit more as well.

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx I can see how it might get frustrating to have a...what? A nemesis? I dont know if thats the right way to put it.

    11 months agoby @skywiseFlag

  22. thedude-abides

    @skywise We're on the same page. Like @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx said, I rate on a scale of 4-stars. So my 3 or 3.5 (still haven't decided yet) rating is actually better than it looks.

    11 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  23. Nicholaus XX

    @skywise -- The beginning of your post pretty much summed it up. I couldn't have said it better myself - hell, I couldn't even realize it for myself. Good points, man.

    A good thing? Hard to say. The conversation does breed an interesting debate, but I can't help but scratch my head over it. If this would happen sporadically, then I wouldn't over-think it. But, this is just weird..

    Glad to see someone finds it entertaining/enjoyable. I got the notion that it may annoy, but it seems like it's doing the opposite. It's safe to say the only people that do find the debate annoying are the debaters? Lol.

    Will do. ;)

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  24. Nicholaus XX

    @skywise -- I don't mean to interject, but are you aware that @thedude-abides rates movies on a 4/4 scale? I ask that because his 3.5/5 rating for this movie would seem a little odd to me if I didn't get the memo.

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  25. skywise

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx Its easy to see why you all have these debates (at least from an outside perspective). Both of you know your stuff and have strong opinions. Both appear to be smart and tend to fall on opposite sides of the coin. Thats a good thing though dont you think. I for one enjoy reading the back and fourth and the best part is, your both very civil. So keep disagreeing beacuse its entertainment!

    11 months agoby @skywiseFlag

  26. skywise

    @thedude-abides Saw the movie today and I pretty much agree with every you said except (if i were half the reviewer that many are around here) I would have given it a solid 4. there is something about the way Anderson frames his shots that is original yet simple. I loved the movie. One of my favorites from him.

    11 months agoby @skywiseFlag

  27. Nicholaus XX

    @thedude-abides -- Well, since you put it that way, hopefully.

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  28. thedude-abides

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx You're the Joker to his Batman, i suppose

    11 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  29. Nicholaus XX

    @thedude-abides -- It's hilarious how EVERY time we talk, the conversation converts into a debate, and then spirals from there. Have I just met someone as stubborn as I?

    I mean, really. What gives?

    11 months agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  30. thedude-abides

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx Lol. Not at all. You guys should have a greatest hits record or something. I see it as bringing more attention to my review, so no worries.

    11 months agoby @thedude-abidesFlag