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Created Jul 03, 2012 09:44PM PST • Edited Jul 04, 2012 09:52PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Wes Anderson movies are an acquired taste – highly stylized, absurdly droll comedies. Moonrise Kingdom? Stylized well into pronounced surrealism. Yet it works due to a lovely and improbable romance between a couple of emotionally disturbed twelve year-olds.

   Being a Wes Anderson movie, the star-crossed lovers are surrounded by dysfunctional families and quasi-families, plus some haplessly officious functionaries. All’s well that ends well, wrote the Bard. True enough with Moonrise Kingdom, which uncorks delightful surprises right through to its happy ending. Bravo.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Bruce Willis is the cast’s biggest name, though his phlegmatic role allows for none of his characteristic verve. He seems sedated when he’s supposed to seem depressed. Edward Norton, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand also emote on the down-low. Of course, they’re playing the understated roles given them. Still.

   The real stars are young newcomers Kara Hayward & Jared Gilman as star-crossed twelve year-old lovers. She brings Emma Watson’s Hermione Granger to mind, while he is touchingly awkward as a man-child making his way in the world.

   Several big names do get to flaunt their chops, livening up the movie in the process.

   • Tilda Swinton as an officious Social Services functionary.
   • Jason Schwartzman as a supplies clerk prone to running his own deals.
   • Harvey Keitel as a martinet Boy Scout leader.
   • Bob Balaban as a locally colorful narrator.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Wes Anderson reaches farther into the surreal with Moonrise Kingdom than I remember him doing in previous live action films. Perhaps he was inspired by what he was able to achieve in the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox, his previous movie. Moonrise Kingdom seems to combine the surrealism of that film with the regimental comedy of Rushmore.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s story is filled with emotionally remote characters and their families, real and contrived. They come together brilliantly: a disaffected nuclear family, a highly regimented Scout troop, a foster family and a lonely bachelor. Grace notes come regularly, delivering drops of delightful surprise all the way to the closing credits.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

    A couple of adolescents touchingly explore their sexuality, chastely and sensitively handled. Bravo.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 1.8

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.6

    Amazing how the young couple hike from one end of a wild island to another with nary a blister or scraped knee, she in Sunday School shoes, he able to pitch and strike a perfect camp lickety-split. Surreal.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.5

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Surreal 2.3