sheetsadam1 — 3 months ago(December 07, 2025 12:57 AM)

The chief problem here is that Anderson the writer should have gotten somebody else to direct his screenplay. We have characters with cartoonish names like Perfidia Beverly Hills, Jungle Pussy and Colonel Lockjaw, a nefarious organization that calls itself the Christmas Adventurers Club, armed revolutionaries who pose as cannabis-growing nuns, a sensei who runs an underground railroad of sorts for undocumented immigrants, etc. The story clearly calls for either an over-the-top pulp epic in the vein of Tarantino (in fact, the desert setting and overall ridiculousness reminded me at times of Russ Meyer) or a full-fledged satire. But Anderson the director takes his screenplay far too seriously.
At nearly three hours, the movie is also far too long. There are some standout performances here, particularly Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, and I don't think Anderson is capable of making anything truly awful. Indeed, this is much, much better than the average movie. But when it inevitably starts winning awards over the coming months, it will be at the expense of superior movies like
Bugonia
or
Eddington
which actually accomplished what Anderson seemed to be going for here.
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