Movie Details
| Title: | The Phoenician Scheme | |
| Director: | Wes Anderson | |
| Year: | 2025 | |
| Genre: | Comedy | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 02.01.26 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (10)
- Asteroid City
- Bottle Rocket
- The Darjeeling Limited
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- The French Dispatch
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Isle of Dogs
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
- Moonrise Kingdom
- The Royal Tenenbaums
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 02.01.26 | Internet | Nefarious businessman Zsa-Zsa Korda designates his nun daughter as his sole heir as he attempts to finalize an ambitious project amidst various saboteurs and frequent assassination attempts. AKA The latest Wes Anderson movie. I'll say this. To the practiced eye, Anderson's style continues to evolve with every movie. Yes, at a glance it looks exactly like every other Wes Anderson movie and that's been the case since Royal Tenenbaums, but I see sprinkles off Asteroid City-esque exteriors here in the various Phoenician settings along with the various little touches and techniques that have accrued from all his past work. Technically and stylistically I can't fault it except to maybe say Robert Yeoman's input at this point is nil because he didn't shoot this but it looks exactly like every other Wes Anderson movie to me. Benicio del Toro also gives an incredible performance. He had a small role in French Dispatch but he carries this movie with no trouble at all. I feel like every actor Anderson ever works with continues to pop up in smaller and smaller roles in all future projects, necessitating a literal army of very small supporting characters just to fit all his friends in, but Benicio's the star of this one and I think what makes it good. Yes, everything's delivered in that formal symmetrical tidy framed Wes Anderson way, but he works well in that stricture and you can still see mischief in his eyes. Where this movie falls short for me, as is often the case with Wes Anderson, is actually caring about what I'm looking at. It's al so pretty and perfect but it often feels more like a rube goldberg device unfurling rather than actors portraying a story. I think the last one that actually made me feel something was Grand Budapest? Oh, maybe Isle of Dogs. The last few have felt kind of like stylistic implosion, approaching Wes Anderson singularity, like I think he's most susceptible to AI mimicry at this point. It'll be that SNL sketch, Midnight Coterie of Sinister intruders, over and over again. I did like this more than Asteroid City though, and love seeing people like Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston pop up. Again, they get like five minutes of screen time because there's so many damn people in the cast, but it's still cool that so many people show up for these movies. Bill Murray, similarly just a few frames of footage but a great role for him and great hair and make-up. Michael Cera also very good, notably good I'd say. Like I said, this one had a lot going for it, it just didn't quite connect with any kind of emotion for me. I'm still a fan, and I find even though my reaction to each trailer is like "sigh, ok more of that," when I sit down to watch these I have some kind of fun. And at this point, a dozen of these films with no obvious stinkers (I say thinking to myself Darjeeling Limited deserves another watch before I condemn it), that's a career all of a sudden. I mean Criterion put out a 10-movie box set that already doesn't include his two latest. How Anderson has managed to consistently come up with these projects and execute them obviously true to his vision is a feat. I hope there are many more to come. |
