Moonrise Kingdom 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Cheers for a Cannes director who has infused his technical mastery with radiant life. In the Museum of the World of Wes Anderson, the dolls are dancing. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: It's an extraordinary thing, from start to finish. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: "Moonrise Kingdom" breezes along with a beautifully coordinated admixture of droll humor, deadpan and slapstick. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: It left me bemused instead of moved, but true Andersonites will likely float away in a state of nirvana. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Like all Wes Anderson movies, it is naive, mannered, pretentious and incomprehensible. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Beguiling and endearing... Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Moonrise Kingdom" takes place in a world where everything seems pleasantly faded, where people read crackly-covered library books rather than e-books, and where young people are allowed to be genuinely innocent. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: If you hate Wes Anderson, this movie won't change your mind, but believers should be enchanted. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Moonrise Kingdom is Anderson's most completely satisfying film since the one-two of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, in part because it's the perfect distillation of both. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Anderson and his actors are able to convey more genuine feeling through these devices than most filmmakers can with more-traditional means. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: "Moonrise Kingdom" is Anderson's seventh movie, and it's the first since "Rushmore" that works from the opening shot to the final image. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Wes Anderson's most intimate film since Bottle Rocket (1996) and maybe his most deeply felt overall. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's a fable about what it feels like to be 12 years old and afflicted, from head to toe, by a romantic crush the size of a planet. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It makes you nostalgic for the pangs of young love. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Anderson never loses his core themes - young love, the need to escape, the bind and bluster of family. His "Kingdom" may not be large, but it is perfectly appointed. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Anderson hasn't lost his puckishly charming genius for cinema-as-diorama visuals. Yet a lot happens in this film, and not a lot of it matters. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: Terrific work by an enviably talented filmmaker, with a wistful poignance that will stick with you. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: As in Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson is able to express sincere personal connection and compatibility while employing a highly artificial style. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: In this tale about growing up and falling in love, it seems Anderson has found his true heart. Read more

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News: Hayward and Gilman are newcomers who are asked to carry much of the film and pull it off with lovely understatement and extraordinary believability. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Most of Wes Anderson's previous pictures came from the head; Moonrise Kingdom is one from the heart. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: The film is frequently funny, always elegant (or mock-elegant), and something that would make Humbert Humbert laugh all the way to his asylum. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Though undeniably smart and charming, "Moonrise Kingdom" loves itself the way the callow Holden Caulfield loves himself: unconditionally. Salinger understood the problem with that. Anderson may not. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: We may look back on Anderson's works as we do on the boxes of Joseph Cornell -- formal troves of frippery, studded with nostalgic private jokes, that lodge inexplicably in the heart. In Moonrise Kingdom, that lodging is already under way. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: What makes it an Anderson movie are the things he adds which mark all his films - the pop-cultural obsessions and excruciatingly detailed set decorations, overarching thematic concerns and little stylistic tics. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: For all the self-conscious distancing techniques and quirky humor Anderson employs, when he's at his best, his work can be surprising in its disarming emotion. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Even as Anderson pushes us away, the kids - and a wonderful Willis, as their self-appointed protector - reach out and pull us back in. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: I liked this one because of its young performers, the evocative island setting (filmed in Rhode Island), Alexandre Desplat's lovely score and Robert Yeoman's slightly grainy cinematography. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The usual complaints and caveats about Anderson - he's precious, his characters have no grounding in the real world - can be made about Moonrise Kingdom, but so what? Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: One knock against some of Anderson's previous efforts is that they're too clever - so clever, in fact, that the humanity gets sucked out of them. That doesn't happen here. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Wes Anderson's mind must be an exciting place for a story idea to be born. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The hilarious and heartfelt Moonrise Kingdom is a consistent pleasure. By evoking the joys and terrors of childhood, it reminds us how to be alive. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Moonrise Kingdom is a deeply romantic film, perhaps the sweetest and most compassionate Anderson has ever made. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: It's an adventure, a love story, a biblical allegory complete with approaching storm, a mash note to composer Benjamin Britten and a profoundly touching discourse on the needs of troubled children. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: A gorgeously shot, ingeniously crafted, uber-Andersonian bonbon that, even in its most irritatingly whimsical moments, remains an effective deliverer of cinematic pleasure. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: If you love Wes Anderson, you'll love this: The best of what he can do is vibrantly on display. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The latest unadulterated delight from Wes Anderson, director of "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Phonies may complain that Anderson's island of misfit toys is a retreat from the real world, but for pure-hearted adventurers who share the secret map, "Moonrise Kingdom" is a joy that cannot be eclipsed. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: Its moments of transporting beauty and visual brilliance overcame my growing aversion to Wes Anderson's brand of ultra-stylized archness. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Anderson's best feature since Rushmore, in part because, like that film, it takes as its primary subject matter odd, precocious children, rather than the damaged and dissatisfied adults they will one day become. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Last time out, in Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson adapted a children's book by Roald Dahl. Now, in Moonrise Kingdom, he's made one of his own. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Resembles a novelization of Godard's Pierrot le Fou as conceived by storybook artist Richard Scarry. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Its childishness, sense of innocence and eye for fun all make it a very easy film to love. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: A continuously surprising and delightful adolescent romance set in 1965, in what appears to be a dollhouse. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A literate, knowing and sweet-hearted reverie about adolescence, that strange gap between childhood and adulthood. It's beautifully rendered by a filmmaker very much in touch with his inner rebel kid. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The director's best film since 1998's Rushmore, it has none of the self-conscious smugness of The Life Aquatic or the empty eccentricity of The Royal Tenenbaums. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Moonrise Kingdom represents a sort of non-magical Neverland -- that momentous instant when the world can seem so small and a naive crush can feel all-consuming. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Its portrait of young love is both mature and defiantly utopian. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: There's no denying the extravagant pleasures "Moonrise Kingdom" affords as an erudite wish-fulfillment fantasy of empowerment and autonomy. Read more