Part of me suspects Asteroid City is one big troll by Wes Anderson. Like he put together a movie that feels exactly like a movie he’d make, but then he just filled it with abstractions, oddities, and disconnected stuff. When the movie ended, I sat there wondering what it all meant, what I had just seen, did any of it make sense, go anywhere, or have any particular meaning? I’m not sure… 50/50 shot its a great big joke, 50/50 its an analogy for recent events.

But the roadrunner was cute… right? RIGHT?!?

Asteroid City is more-or-less about a small desert town set next to a crater, a highway, and an unfinished on-ramp. A celebration of brilliant child scientists is being held which brings in a horde of recognizable Hollywood actors who can make Wes Anderson’s arch dialog work. But it’s actually a documentary tv show about a play called Asteroid City.

So… imagine the weirdest, quirkiest, oddest Wes Anderson movie you can… now add science fiction. What was weird and distracting goes into hyperdrive with a gaggle of weirdos contemplating outer space… and stuff… all in the usual distant, distracted, unconcerned, barely human Wes Anderson way. If Anderson wasn’t off on his own planet before, he sure is now (literally and figuratively).

A lot of this film reminded me of something like Hail Caesar or Burn After Reading by the Coen Brothers. Movies that have stuff happen in them but never seem to be taking “being a movie” all that seriously. Flicks taking the piss out of the very meaning of motion picture storytelling. And this is what I get from Asteroid City. It’s almost mocking the very notion that its a narrative film… possibly because it’s not actually a movie, it’s a recreation of a stage play in the form of a television show about that stage play. Or something.

Or maybe it’ll take a few more viewings to really “get it”. As it stands on first watch, the possibility I’ve been punked makes me give this film four stars of appreciation for the gag. But since it might be an earnest attempt at something via Wes Anderson’s oddball sensibilities, I think I’ll give it four stars for artificial sets, quirky humor, and a gaggle of oddball characters saying oddball Wes Anderson things. And that roadrunner.

I might actually hate the movie… but I might actually love it too.

“What have we learned? I don’t f’ing know either”.

Score: 85