I'm not a fan of Wes Anderson's work. I think he tries too hard to make his movies cute and quirky and in the effect they never feel effortless. They just seem pretentious and are clear examples of style over substance. That said, there are some of his movies I actually enjoyed and found to be quite charming like
The Royal Tenenbaums,
Fantastic Mr. Fox and
Rushmore. I really wanted to like
Moonrise Kingdom, but I ended up strongly disliking it. In fact, if the movie didn't have beautiful cinematography it would probably be around 30-40 points. It has everything that could have worked beautifully - it is set in New England - magical place. It takes place in the 60's - magical time. And it has music composed by Alexandre Desplat - composer of magical scores. But you can't have true magic without strong story.
For me the most important thing in a movie are the characters. They don't necessarily have to be likable, but they should be interesting. Even if the movie is awful, if there is a single character you love watching you won't hate the movie. The problem with
Moonrise Kingdom is that it only has two characters I genuinely liked - Edward Norton's Scout Master Ward and Bruce Willis's Captain Sharp - and they are not featured enough in this movie. Instead, we follow lifeless and boring adventures of two kids " in love".
