Pee Wee Territory

Rating: 5/10 (22 August 2013)

With it's self indulgent silliness and juvenile mise en scene Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is situated smack dab in the middle of Pee Wee Herman country. Herman's childish surreal world along with Pee Wee's boundless enthusiasm made for some must see Saturday morning viewing but in small doses and Kingdom's clever little world starts to approach tedium about a Playhouse episode in.
Dealing with the awkwardness of childhood Khaki Scout Sam meets Suzy, a disgruntled twelve year old living on the island of New Penzance in the 60s. Both are less than satisfied with their living situations and plot to run off together. When they do Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) mobilizes the troop to hunt the AWOL Sam down while the Bishops (Bill Murray, Francis Mc Dormand) alert Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) daughter Suzy has flown the coop with cat, books and record player. In the mean time a powerful storm is making its way towards the island.
Anderson's signature passion for pastels and killing dogs are in place as he builds this parable/parody with cutesy geometric compositions and self conscious set design that like everything else becomes wearisome fast. His adult quartet of stars for the most part sleepwalk through their parts, especially McDormand whose been in a permanent fog for years. Tilda Swinton's arch turn representing Civil Service comes across as an abrasive new age Margaret Hamilton from Oz while Willis and Murray walk around with scowls, confused. As troop leader Ward, Norton's crisp uniform does most of the talking.
With his generic and banal storyline Anderson put's nearly all his emphasis on the precious look of his film and he certainly chose location wisely ( I cycle past some of the locations regularly) with Narragansett Bay and its islands. But as in all of Anderson's colorfully drab (The Darjeeling Express, The Royal Tanenbaums, Life Acquatic...) efforts it fails to hold up in the second half with the imagery getting old and the plot impossible to build on outside of the same self indulgence that served the first half.