When it comes to testing or showing the skills of generative AI, a name is at the top of the list, which is almost always used in such presentations. “Create me an image/video with the content XY – but let it look as if it comes from a film by Wes Anderson”: Anyone who uses it promptly can be absolutely certain that the result is to be seen at first glance, which was specified here as a work assignment. This does not mean that Anderson's art is so generic that it can easily copy a soulless AI with a play. On the contrary: In the 30 years since his debut “crazy”, the “The Royal Tenenbaums” director has declined his unmistakable style so delicately that more people probably recognize an Anderson than a Michelangelo or a Leonardo da Vinci.
But there is a problem: If an artist gradually progresses on the steep path to the championship, it can be exciting with every work. But what if he has achieved his goal? What if it is enough for minimal variations because it simply doesn't go up? Then the effect from time to time continues to use. We can do Wes Anderson after “The Phoenician master prank“So only advise you to try it at the mountain next door. He would have to start again, but slowly it gets tiring to watch him again and again from the same tip – even if we have rarely experienced the Oscar winner Benicio del Toro (“ Traffic ”) so strongly.
Is there a single cinema fan on this planet, which in this scene cannot say how the director is like out of the pistol?
The semi-silk businessman Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), who is said to have all three of his women murdered, is the richest man in Europe. And because he does not take into account states or competition in his business, half the world – including his half -brother Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch) – is looking for him. When a bomb explodes in his private plane (again) and after a crash landing in a corn field, it is clear to ZSA-ZSA that he has to change something: So he lets his nun subsidiary Liesl (Kate Winsett's daughter Mia Threapleton) get out of the monastery in order to use her as a sole heir and business successor.
The first thing he shows his alienated daughter are the nine shoe boxes with the building blocks of the title -giving Phoenician prank. This is an infrastructure project, which is comprehensive several mammoth buildings, for the fictional state of Phoenicia. But then several nations merged in order to manipulate the stock exchange courses under the leadership of the bureaucrat Exkalibur (Rupert Friend) so that ZSA-ZSA's calculation is no longer at the back and front. So he only has one chance: ZSA-ZSA has to travel across Phoenicios together with Liesl and the insect customer tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera) to negotiate the contracts with its business partners …
Hot films are just about Wes Anderson
The “Asteroid City”, who was disappointing despite the terrific set, was not good for him to only play in an isolated place in the desert. Wes Anderson needs the planning and movement-and that's why he is particularly popular (from “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” to “Grand Budapest Hotel” to “Isle of Dogs”). At the center of “The Phoenician Master Cancer” is now at least a kind of economic feature, because Zsa-Zsa is constantly trying to pull everything and everyone over the table-although he has less success since he tries to convince his good-natured daughter. Benicio Del Toro inspires as a tough-hard businessman, who even attempts to murder at a height of 10,000 meters with the typical WESDONSON LAKONIE, but is suddenly forced to also (again) discover his softer side. At its side – at least in the original English version – Michael Cera, especially with a hilarious Swedish accent, ensures most laughs.
But swing really doesn't get into the matter. The individual stations of the business trip are sometimes almost reminiscent of “Saturday Night Live” sketches with the respective guest stars-for example when Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as the bosses of an American conglomerate in an anachronistic streetball match against ZSA-ZSA and the Phoenic Crown Prince (Riz Ahmed) stand up,) to clear a business dispute. However, the places and stars change so quickly that “the Phoenician prank” still keeps at least a solid entertainment level – even if Anderson has not favored to show his cast in the opening credits “after the order of their occurrence”. After all, it makes a not inconsiderable part of the stimulation to see who will come next.
Wes Anderson's inspiration, that Benicio del Toro somehow reminds him of a historical European businessman, was the cornerstone for the film.
The queues of the stars that stand in the stomach to be able to recite a single sentence for Wes Anderson in the iconic sets in the iconic sets if necessary. The problem is less that there is hardly any space on the posters and trailers to accommodate all the big names, but rather that the director finds less and less to do for them (which does not prevent him from receiving everyone with the arms open):
Of course it is somehow cool to see Bill Murray as a noise-bearing god, but that in the black and white Bible scenes already scattered somewhat as desired, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe and F. Murray Abraham are just a waste is pure waste, especially since many of them do not even have a single brilliant gag. This also becomes more and more a trademark of the director-after all, a AI spits if you ask her for a credible cast for a fictional WESDONSON film in 2026, a cast list with no less than 19 names of international superstars.
Conclusion: “The Phoenician master prank” is at least an increase compared to the desert-dry “Asteroid City”, simply because Heist plots fit the director and humor particularly well. Nevertheless, many of the stylistic devices associated with Wes Anderson slowly take advantage of.
We saw “The Phoenician Master Cancer” at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated its world premiere as part of the official competition.