This is Wes Anderson's masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2018)

The only reason I rate this 10/10 is that the IMdB scale doesn't go any higher. I'd give it 11/10 if I could. This is pure movie magic.
Before I forget to mention it, the end credits might be the best thing about this thoroughly great film -- Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" plays while a child's voice narrates it and the credits go by in graceful, colorful script. Don't leave till you've seen every last bit. It's genius.
But the movie itself -- I like Wes Anderson's work a lot but I'm still struggling with how to pin it down in words. It's eccentric charm -- absolutely every speaking role in the film is an eccentric persona -- but somehow more than that. Many or even most of the characters are fairly serious, straight-ahead personalities who don't see their own eccentricities, and when they collide with each other or with the real world is when the fun begins. That's especially true of the young preteens Suzy and Sam (newcomers Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman) around whom the plot revolves. The cast has lots of the Wes Anderson regulars like Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Tilda Swinton, and Bruce Willis in the bigger roles. Every one of them adds to the chaotic mix that the storyline becomes.
Anderson's "Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014) followed Moonrise Kingdom a couple of years later and got more acclaim. It's great too but I don't agree. "Hotel" is thoroughly entertaining but it's SO stylish that it kind of outweighs the human beings underneath. Moonrise Kingdom has style and charm to burn, but it also keeps its human heart at the center. You end up feeling a sense of affection for each one of them. The characters are flawed human beings worth caring for, particularly Suzy and Sam who go off together to have an adventure that at least temporarily releases them from their confining environments. They're both mildly crazy, but as the old saying goes, they click because the rocks in his head somehow perfectly fit the holes in hers.