The Phoenician Scheme

Excellent in ways and mediocre in others.
First of all its a wes anderson film so of course the film looks great, the three main actors all have great chemistry but my main problems are the characters.

They aren't bad but allot of the decisions made left me scratching my head, I felt Bjorn being revealed to be a spy has almost no impact besides like 1 thing, it doesn't make interesting or uninteresting but it kinda just does nothing which sucks because I really liked his character up until then because micheal cera is so perfect in his role.

Korda, the main player in this feature is one I also don't dislike but i didn't feel like he changed in a meaningful way at the end. Yes his character went threw an arc but yet I felt that arc went uncompleted, it felt unsatisfying to say the least.
And like with mia threapelton, the acting is good but I think sometimes Andersons direction feels more suited for a Broadway play which isn't inherently a bad thing but when you are making a film, its important to get emotion across with facial expression and im not a fan of the 99% deadpan reaction which feels more like a way to uplift the dry comedy.
It does do that but it becomes an issue when it left me feeling kinda stoic with my emotions towards the characters themselves.
With that said the characters are likeable enough but not anything note worthy.

As for the sidecharacters i felt some were really funny and others were just useless fodder to make the story progress. Which they inherently kinda are maybe on purpose but that really doesn't do anything for me.

Thats maybe a slight problem with this film and his other last film astroid city were wes has written maybe has a bit to much characters into the story which are mostly played by big stars.
I think its more excusable in this movie then in that film. Of course wes has always had big cast but i always felt those characters like in the grand budapest besides maybe jeff goldblum moved the story allong in a meaningfull way while having a unique charm to them.
Here they do have some charm but it also feels like wes anderson's charm on autopilot.
Overall the pheonician scheme is not bad but i didn't fully understand what wes was trying to do half of the time.

The Phoenician Scheme2025

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I loved Michael Cera in this, and it was aesthetically pleasing like all Wes Anderson films. I wish it was more ensemble-driven though.

The Phoenician Scheme2025

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