Moonrise Kingdom
Focus Features | Release Date: May 25, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
42
Mixed:
0
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 22, 2012
A thoroughly endearing journey, and one of the most enjoyable and touching movies to land in theaters so far this year. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJun 21, 2012
The film is precious and adorable, but it isn't naïve, and the movie breathes so deep that Anderson even gets a real performance out of Willis (this is his best work in years). Read full review
100
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 8, 2012
The best film of the year and perhaps the purest love story in cinematic history. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 7, 2012
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? This is his seventh feature, he has been working with a gang of collaborators in front of the camera and behind, and his worldview gets richer, and more revealing, even as the view from his lens gets smaller, closer, almost two-dimensional in its oddball tableaux. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliMay 31, 2012
The formality of Moonrise Kingdom - the orderly structure and dreamlike perfection of it all - is as poetic as any film I've seen this year. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMay 31, 2012
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 full review
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirMay 23, 2012
Rapturous and hilarious. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott TobiasMay 23, 2012
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 full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 7, 2012
There isn't a false note among the performances. It's the first movie for Hayward and Gilman; whatever awkwardness they display is appropriate. Willis may never have been better. Norton is fantastic. Murray and McDormand are also ... well, you get the idea. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 24, 2012
Moonrise Kingdom breezes along with a beautifully coordinated admixture of droll humor, deadpan and slapstick. Like all of Mr. Anderson's films, though, there's a deep, pervasive melancholia here too. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 24, 2012
Beguiling and endearing. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMay 24, 2012
Here the writer-director's tendency toward the allegorical casts a magical spell with Anderson finding a near perfect balance between the humanism and the surreal that imprints all of his work. Read full review
90
Village VoiceKarina LongworthMay 22, 2012
Shot on Super 16mm, the visible grain giving each image a wonderfully tactile depth and life, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is, in a lot of ways, the ur–Wes Anderson film. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 6, 2012
Anderson and his co-writer Roman Coppola have crafted an elegant and emphatic metaphor for adolescence, that tumultuous province of firsts and lasts. Read full review
89
NPRIan BuckwalterMay 29, 2012
Anderson has the ability to control our emotions just as expertly as his camera. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 5, 2012
Moonrise Kingdom is lovingly crafted with an attention to detail that is breathtaking while, at the same time, it displays genuine affection for its young protagonists. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 31, 2012
First-time Anderson performers such as Willis, McDormand and especially Norton fold effortlessly into the melancholy end-of-summer vibe. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMay 30, 2012
Yes, we know these events are less than likely, and the film's entire world is fantastical. But what happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 24, 2012
Literate, melancholy and magical, Moonrise Kingdom is quintessential Wes Anderson, infused with his brand of daffy wit. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 24, 2012
The top-tier cast, including Tilda Swinton as a character called Social Services, may be star overload, but each actor performs small miracles. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerMay 17, 2012
Although the film remains continually fanciful, it always reminds us of the stakes in which precocious childhood rubs up against the possibility of a childhood denied altogether. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 27, 2012
These characters don't realize they're funny, and the actors are determined not to push it. Willis fares best, playing against in-control type; Murray fans expecting a comedy explosion won't find it here. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 26, 2012
It makes you nostalgic for the pangs of young love. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 21, 2012
Even when that story drags, Moonrise Kingdom could be appreciated on mute. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 4, 2012
Anderson's great gift is to catch the generations as they intersect. [4 & 11 June 2012, p 132]
80
Chicago ReaderBen SachsMay 31, 2012
As usual, Anderson's densely imagined mise-en-scene contains many allusions to movies, music, and literature (Benjamin Britten's orchestral work being a key touchstone); what's different this time is that most of the cultural references grow naturally from the characterization. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensMay 24, 2012
Moonrise Kingdom is fun: a gorgeously shot, ingeniously crafted, über-Andersonian bonbon that, even in its most irritatingly whimsical moments, remains an effective deliverer of cinematic pleasure. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMay 24, 2012
Though not as impactful as Anderson's strongest works - including its adolescent cousin, "Rushmore" - "Kingdom" unfolds with an asymmetrical lyricism of its own. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichMay 22, 2012
Anderson's romantic fantasia is after something much more complicated and profound-an ever-renewing balance between the hopes of youth and the disappointments of age. Read full review
80
EmpireNev PierceMay 21, 2012
As funny, bittersweet and as distinct as you'd expect from Wes Anderson, a director who helps you know you are not alone. Terrific performances from sprogs to stars and a lovely sense of the sorrow and joy of growing up. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyMay 18, 2012
Fleet, funny, impeccably orchestrated: whimsical Wes returns on top of his game. Non-fans might call it over-familiar comfort cinema but with the craft so loving and new elements so well-integrated, his singular pitch remains a thing to cherish. Read full review
80
TimeRichard CorlissMay 17, 2012
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 full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 16, 2012
A very charming, beautifully wrought, if somehow depthless film - eccentric but heartfelt, and thought through to the tiniest, quirkiest detail in the classic Anderson style. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 16, 2012
This is a Wes Anderson film -- more lightweight than some, possessing a stronger emotional undertow than others -- that will strike the uninitiated as conspicuously arch. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondMay 16, 2012
The director of quirky fare with a rabid cult-like following has made a charming, magical and really funny new work about two unique young kids discovering love over one unforgettable summer, and it's the director's most accessible movie yet. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMay 31, 2012
Even by his stylistic standards, Anderson has cranked up the artifice. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 31, 2012
Moonrise Kingdom is already shaping up to be this summer's art house sleeper hit, and no wonder: It traffics in the very kind of escapist spectacle -- in this case of a thoughtfully composed world brimming with whimsy, enchantment and visual brio -- that the season was made for. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickMay 25, 2012
Disarmingly sweet. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMay 21, 2012
It left me bemused instead of moved, but true Andersonites will likely float away in a state of nirvana. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeMay 16, 2012
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 full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumMay 23, 2012
For some viewers, Moonrise Kingdom may be movie heaven, another bric-a-brac-jammed bauble to place alongside "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" and "The Darjeeling Limited." Personally, though, I wish that Anderson would come out from under the glass, or at least change what he's doing under there. Read full review
65
MovielineStephanie ZacharekMay 24, 2012
So why can't I love Moonrise Kingdom? For all the movie's technical meticulousness, the storytelling still has a wiggly-waggly quality, like a dangly loose tooth. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedMay 24, 2012
The result, in the case of Moonrise Kingdom, is what I call transcendentally brainless - an after school special aimed at asinine adolescents over the age of 40. Read full review
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