The Dark Kingdom Rises

Rating: 9/10 (11 December 2012)

I am awaiting the day one of the greatest and under-the-radar directors of all time, Wes Anderson, finally gets his honors.
Admittedly, I've had to revisit most of his previous works more than once in order to appreciate or even understand him. I still have Rushmore to explore once again.
Well, with Moonrise Kingdom, a movie I'll undoubtedly see again, I wouldn't need a second viewing forI loved it from frame one.
Months from now, when the Oscars are revealed, it's sad that I highly doubt this will win the top prize. Granted, I haven't seen the other obvious nominees, such as Zero Dark Thirty or Argo, but I absolutely loved this wildly and unabashedly original distant twist of Romeo & Juliet and hope it surprises everyone and wins Best Picture.
Back to Anderson and his genius for a moment. This movie is filled with kids: bright, young, full of energy and potential, and yet, this is probably one of the few times in my life have I seen spirits flow through their faces and knew it was the director that pulled that special talent out from their tiny depths to the open. You could see it in the boys faces, it was written all over them. They might turn their futures into the next Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Leonardo DiCaprio, but it was Anderson that helped them shine here.
The wacky – and believe me, all Anderson fairy tales are – story revolves around nutso islanders of the 1960s trying to keep a small and disfavored orphan, Sam (played wonderfully by Jared Gilman) and an equally disliked young female, Suzy (also played without a flaw by Kara Hayward) from loving each other. Reasons: unknown. Selfish adults.
Part of the beauty of this odd fairy tale is the adventures of Sam and Suzy, with the backdrop of a pending monster storm foretold almost immediately in the story, and the diverse directions the landscape and mood takes and never sways from the heart, humor or straight line the story promises it will take us.
During that, characters grow, reveal themselves, realism strikes and we genuinely care for the people's outcome even when they don't mesh with how we feel they should act or what they should say.
I know I said I wouldn't "have to" watch it a second time, but sure as shuck, I will. I know there is more depth here that I might have missed, more humor and more realizations I might have overlooked while trying to take in all the beauty of this filmmaking.
In fact, I look forward to my revisiting the Moonrise Kingdom. It's an adult kid story that as an adult kid, I want to experience this again and again. Well done, Mr. Anderson. I look forward to you getting the absolute acknowledgment you deserve as of one of the best filmmakers, or storytellers, of any time.
--
Side Note: As I prepared to create the film review page for my website, I glanced over many film stills for Moonrise Kingdom and I smiled with fondness and felt remorse for neglecting some key aspects. I didn't even touch on the secondary characters – played by the wonderful Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Bruce Willis. They all did awesome, as did the cinematographer and both the film's score and soundtrack are to die for. I just had to throw these acknowledgements in because they all made the film well-rounded and I neither forgot them, nor the art created.