First Wes film I do not care to ever watch again

Rating: 1/10 (23 October 2012)

Even my least favorite Wes Anderson movie was still shot wonderfully, had amazing props and was fairly entertaining.
The story was interesting, but the telling felt clumsy and somewhat off. Every character felt stiff (realize that it was the director's intent to portray the innocence of the mid-60s by shifting the characters to being a bit un-animated, but deadpan delivery is not all that entertaining to me). The odd details that Wes chose to focus on (mapping the runaway, the outdoor survival skills of the protagonist and the church/stage presentations) have come to be expected. These usually work because the audience is enthralled with the escapades of the major characters, and the stylizing is just delicious fluff.
We loved the Tenenbaum children, despite their flaws; we rooted for the small-time crooks in Bottle Rocket; and we absolutely were pulling for Max (despite being a terrible student) in Rushmore. Moonrise Kingdom is all style, no substance. Your mileage may vary on how much your mind allowed you to invest in Sam and Suzy's young love story. The acting all around made it nigh impossible for me.
Dear Wes: There's a reason nobody hires Bill Murray any more ... seeing his ill-kept, care-free, Bill Murray as Bill Murray act has run it's course.
While it was nice to see Wes stray from his stable of Wilson brothers, Angelica Huston, etc. Jared Gilman is possibly the worst child actor since Macaulay Culkin. Sam (Jared) either has a speech impediment or needs to up his enunciation skills by several magnitudes. I often watch movies with subtitles on (for my wife's benefit). As we streamed this movie, I was constantly being asked to translate Sam. Some display of any range of emotion would have been welcomed (re: Sam's role). If Jared worked with a speech coach for a solid year, he would probably make a wonderful young Colin Meloy should a film in the near future require one. If Wes Anderson's goal was to equate a stoic cast to emotional innocence of the 60's then Jared was an OK choice, but I would have much preferred selecting a child actor that knows how to speak and/or act. For a wonderful example, look at how wonderful all of the child actors were in Tenenbaums!
Almost as if to not be outdone on the terribad scale, Bruce Willis (or was it a cardboard cutout?) delivered a performance of simple lines devoid of emotion. After the ending I couldn't help but draw a parallel between Captain Sharp (Willis) and Bert Fisher (Seymour Cassel) from Rushmore. While the goal for each was to portray simple, blue-collar father figures, I was much more interested in Bert's actions due to there being a healthy dose of substance in what each actor delivered in their performance. It is hard to tell how much of this is Willis' fault, since it seems evident Wes was browbeating everyone into lifeless deliveries.
Probably the best scene in the whole film is when Suzy (Kara Hayward) is in the bath discussing pre-teen angst with her mom (Frances McDormand). YES! Some passion! Some substance! I wanted to see more of this, but the rest of the film viewed as a showcase for Wes's prop hunters to strut their vintage finds.
Wes set the bar high for himself with his previous body of works, but it is easy for me to slide Moonrise Kingdom into 7th place in "top Wes flicks".