The director's latest A-Lister Farce premiered in Cannes, featuring Benicio Del Toro, Michael Cera, Scarlett Johansson and more, which is fun, but fun.

Just when you think Wes Anderson can no longer get Wes Anderson, he made a movie that took Wes Anderson's attitude to a whole new level, packing more quirks that have become his trademark: symmetrical desktops, bright, bright, bright, hard-working, pressing outfits, proudly giving out the proud human dialogue, a regular artificial dialogue. The audience is the audience of his latest alternative comedy, whether Anderson fanatics or Wes-Spoctics, they will surely doubt whether the writer and director will try a less recognizable project.

The good news is that the Phoenicians plan is one of Anderson's more interesting films dedicated to knocking on the door so that you can make you smile at Anderson's attitude rather than simply keeping your eyes wide at it. Especially the opening sequence is a crazy treatment. Benicio del Toro was introduced as ZSA-ZSA Korda, an immoral 1950s businessman who seemed inspired by the super affluent of William Randolph Hearst, J Paul Getty, Aristotle Onassis and Howard Hughes, and expressed some agreement with the Royal Tenenbaums consultants. He first saw a cigar blowing on a private jet and then surviving an assassination attempt, a regular part of his life - his miraculous escape had enough energy to make you dizzy.

After that, however, the film soon landed on Earth. Back at his magnificent villa, Corda met with his 20-year-old daughter Liesl (Mia Treeapleton). She is a new nun he hadn't seen in years, but he still hopes that she (not one of his nine sons) inherits the wealth he has produced from arms trade and crimes, among other unpleasant practices. He also hopes that she will help him with the latest, greatest adventure, a large-scale infrastructure program involving railways and dams in the Middle East desert. Liesl is not interested, but she does want to investigate the rumors of Korda's murder of her mother, one of his three wives, so she agrees to hang out.

The problem is that the infrastructure plan has been destroyed by a secret agent (Rupert Friend) who hates all the government work of Korda. Suddenly, he had to fly in the area, renegotiating a contract in Liesl and his nerdy new Norwegian secretary Bjorn (a cute stupid Michael Cera), who could have been born in the Wes Anderson movie).

Korda plays basketball with two railway tycoons (Tom Hanks and Brian Cranston) and a prince (Ritz Ahmed); he gets muzzled at the gun with a nightclub (Mathieu Amalric); he shares blood transfusions with transport tycoon (Jeffrey Wright); he proposes to his second cousin (Scarlett Johnson). Along the way, he narrowly avoided assassination: every time he had an almost dead experience, he would visit Black and White Heaven, where Murray, Murray Abraham and Willem Dafoe play God and Angels.

There is a ray of emotion here and there. On one level, the Phoenician plan is about a ruthless man who learns to be a better person by spending time with a determined daughter. But on another level, the movie is…well, hard to say. At present, wealthy industrialists may not be a more resonant topic from the way they use others, but Anderson has not studied much in Korda's decades of indulgence. He creates a faint, whimsical but slow-talking farce, structured by accident, relying on slogan humor, and thus foolishly dabbles in its creativity that the actors and crew may make up as they grow. It's one of Anderson's ironies: in many ways, they all have an obsessive focus on details, however, the plot of the Phoenician project could have been delineated on the back of the envelope in the morning hour. It's fun, but unless your tolerance for director traits is high on the stratosphere, it's very likely that this story seems too random to care about halfway through.

Later, Benedict Cumberbatch is decorated with a Tom-and-and-jerry-style battle between bearded Korda and his malicious half-brother. However, this farce is indeed ultimately admitted and this nonsense should not be taken too seriously. Some directors boast that they made the movies they wanted to see and they didn’t care about pleasing others. As far as the Phoenician Project goes, Anderson and his team seem to like it better than their audience.

★★★☆☆