The Darjeeling Limited

Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson. That sums up this film, which maintains a five out of 10 rating merely because of an interesting backdrop and the great performances of Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman in the films central characters. But then again Wes Anderson always somehow gets these great casts and always has an interesting backdrop.

I will give him this; it wasn't as bad as his last film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which managed to be bad even with a cast of Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson and Jeff Goldblum. But its Wes Anderson and that's an insult in my book.

I'm sorry if I seem I'm ready to rip his head off but I'm as tired of him doing the same thing over and over and over and over again as I am with Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller, and Will Ferrell. In Wes Anderson's case I never liked the way he shot his films and they've only grown more grating over the years. I was truly disapointed with both The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic. I'll say that honestly because it makes me all the more bitter than if I had expected them to be bad from the beginning.

Let me just describe this film in generic terms so you wouldn't be able to figure out which Wes Anderson film I was talking about if I hadn't told you: dry, listless, empty, and meaningless. Now I will give him this, (because I hate to completely pan things and I won't ignore the positive traits in movies I dislike), like his other films it has a great soundtrack. I love the musical score for it, and its sets and shooting are well done. Its just not funny, involving, or deep in any way. Not to mention the inclusion, on the DVD version, of the seperately shot and unrelated short film by Schwartzman "The Hotal Chevalier", and its incoproration into the movie was unneccessary and poorly done. It was very amateurish, and proved to be quite non sequitor.

Now I get Wes Anderson's kind of a dark, melancholic comedy, I like the type, Anderson just does in a way that's lifeless and stale. If he wants to improve he should take a feather out of movies like Little Miss Sunshine's book, or the Cohen brothers in their better movies like The Big Lebowski and Fargo. Maybe he could learn something from other users. He needs to learn how to lighten it up a little bit. What I'm saying is don't pound the watcher and then grind him against the pavement for an hour and a half. Another tip, please try something new, quit using your rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald stock characters and go for a different approach. And I say all this because I try to give legitimate movies constructive criticism instead of just panning them many critics.