Maybe artificial intelligence will direct Wes Anderson’s next movie?

Despite the official end, the corona pandemic continues to leave its mark on the soul: insecurities, lethargy, the search for meaning where there simply is none. The Texan director Wes Anderson has also been strongly affected by the events of the past three years – at least subconsciously, as he said on the occasion of the release of his eleventh feature film.

With «Asteroid City», the cheerful pastel color hobbyist presents a work whose optical blinding power would make any Instagram filter jealous. The big questions about our place in the universe are raised, but at the same time much smaller ones, such as the meaning of fatherhood, are not thought through to the end. And so the science fiction western comedy unfortunately remains boring, heavy and charming as three weeks of lockdown with the ex-partner.

USA 1955: In the middle of the wildest west, in the wasteland of the desert, lies a fictional nest called «Asteroid City». At most, the 87 residents get a brief shock when an atomic bomb test shoots a mushroom over the horizon during morning coffee at the diner.

Next to the track, the obligatory shrub plants, the steppe runners, blow over the sand, sometimes a small artificial bird parades through the image. The undoubted highlight is an asteroid that hit here 5,000 years ago and turned the city into a mini mecca for space fans.

On the anniversary of the impact, science collects and rewards high school research projects. Like how to project an image on the moon, invented by gifted teen Woodrow, stranded in Asteroid City with his three little sisters and widowed war photographer father (Jason Schwartzman). There the day trickles lazily by, with depressingly unfunny dialogue and drinks from vending machines that can even sell lots.

Until something finally happens: an alien disrupts the festivities and steals the asteroid. As a result, the city is declared a restricted area by the military.

All these events are part of a play presented to us by Bryan Cranston as moderator, a level of literature Wes Anderson regularly incorporates into his films. And as also typical in addition to all the usual background set shenanigans, half of Hollywood drops by again: Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, and dozens more. Some stars like Willem Dafoe or Margot Robbie glow for up to three minutes.

“Asteroid City” brings together a gigantic ensemble that no cowboy and no storyteller in this world could capture. So the figures in this abundance are only just being created. The film does not grant them an interesting, satisfying existence.

With his lovingly playful dollhouse aesthetic, Wes Anderson has amazed us on multiple occasions, in “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001), “Darjeeling Limited” (2007) and “Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014). But his latest film “The French Dispatch” (2021) already blew through something museum-like and the first signs of nostalgic fatigue appeared. Sadly, this time around, the director gave way to his thrilling enthusiasm as he piled on his miniature ideas and succumbed to the narcissistic picture book magic.

An extremely distinctive style sooner or later falls victim to parody. This happened to Anderson when Twitter, Instagram and TikTok were flooded with images and videos created by algorithms in recent weeks. Whether “Star Wars”, “Harry Potter”, intellectual greats from German literary history or the banal of everyday life: The Wes Anderson look can be imposed on everything at the touch of a button. Hipster hat on, stack retro objects next to it, color filters over it, move to the central perspective – done.

The AI ​​can imitate this style so easily because Anderson has created an instantly recognizable visual language like almost no other contemporary director. He is now settled in it, everything is neatly in its place. The comedy arises through gentle disturbances and shifts in that sequence, without fundamentally questioning it. It’s a world that’s conservative at its core and now threatens to freeze completely with “Asteroid City”. Maybe artificial intelligence will direct Wes Anderson’s next movie. Or hopefully something we can fall in love with again.