“Asteroid City” is destination cinema.

The latest film from writer-director Wes Anderson is a delight.

It tells a fascinating fictional story, has a look as few other films and boasts wonderful performances from an ensemble cast.

In “Asteroid City,” it’s 1955 and a Junior Stargazer Convention takes place in southwest United States, presumably New Mexico, in the shadow of atom-bomb testing. Asteroid City, population 87, is a roadside attraction, named for an asteroid that crashed and created a crater there some 5,000 years ago.

It wouldn’t be giving too much away to say that the youths, their families and the townspeople are paid an unexpected visit. It’s a close encounter of the Wes Anderson kind.

Nor would it be a spoiler to say that the film is framed in the context of a play that that tells the story of Asteroid City.

New York City theater scenes in black and white are in the 1:37:1 (a square-ish format) Academy aspect ratio.

Asteroid City scenes, in colors so bright you may need to wear sunglasses in the movie theater (Just kidding, but you get the picture.), are in the 2:39:1 aspect ratio (scope) widescreen format.

Anderson used the contrasting formats technique in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014).

The theater stage play is presented as a “Playhouse 90” (1956-1960) style television program. A stentorian TV show host (a wonderful Bryan Cranston doing his best Edward R. Murrow meets Rod Serling), stands and talks, usually, on the audience right of the screen.

It all begins with an ink typewriter ribbon, intones the host (Cranston) as we see playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton doing a laconic Tennessee Williams meets William Faulkner), tapping away at a manual typewriter.

The scene shifts to the dusty, sun-drenched desert of Asteroid City, which consists of a gas station, diner, motel cabins, junked cars, unfinished highway bridge, observatory, asteroid crater site and little else, bisected by a railroad track (a diesel pulls freight cars with a hobo on board), a highway (replete with hot-rod, police car and motorcycle chase) and back-dropped by papier-maché-looking rock outcroppings.

The effect is that of a scale-model train set. There’s a sense of miniaturist detail and exaggeration as if at any moment the hand of Wes Anderson (as in “The Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” 1958), might reach into a movie frame and snatch set pieces, cars and people.

Augie Steenbeck (a stoic, pipe-smoking Jason Schwartzman) and his three daughters, played by triplets with one more wonderful than the next, Andromeda (Ella Faris), Pandora (Gracie Faris) and Cassiopeia (Willan Faris), and son Woodrow (a terrific Jake Ryan), are stranded in Asteroid City when the family Mercury station wagon breaks down. The diagnosis by a Mechanic (a drolly hilarious Matt Dillon) is bleak. Steenbeck phones for help from his father, Stanley Zak (a resolute and resonate Tom Hanks), to pick up the children.

A Hollywood movie star, Midge Campbell (a nearly unrecognizable and great Scarlett Johansson) arrives and strikes up a relationship with Steenbeck. Attendees for the stargazers’ convention arrive. An awards ceremony is held where youths receive awards (“Big Ribbon Sash,” seemingly among them) for their inventions, experiments and observations.

The cast is deep with oddball characters and talent: Motel Manager (Steve Carell), General Gibson (Jeffrey Wright), Dr. Hickenlooper (Tilda Swinton), Schubert Green (Adrien Brody), Dinah, Midge’s daughter (Grace Edwards), J.J. Kellogg (Liev Schreiber), Salzburg Keitel (Willem Dafoe), June (Maya Hawke), Shelly (Sophia Lillis), Actress (Margo Robbie) and more too numerous to mention and each great.

“Asteroid City” has antecedents in the Coen Brothers’ “Raising Arizona” (1987), Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959), any number of 1950s’ aliens invading Earth movies and Anderson’s own films (notably, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” 2014, and “The French Dispatch,” 2021).

In Anderson’s observational-rich “Asteroid City” screenplay, from a story he co-wrote with Roman Coppola (collaborator with Anderson: “Moonrise Kingdom,” 2012; “The Darjeeling Limited,” 2007; “Isle of Dogs” 2018), the dialogue is crisp, witty and filled will life-lesson bromides that turn out to be more profound than at first blush.

Anderson is an American auteur whose mise en scène is unlike any film-maker, contemporary or otherwise. He creates a world unto his own. Talk about the multiverse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe. How about the Wes Anderson Universe? Anderson puts the world and its inhabitants under a microscope.

The music is by Alexandre Desplat (“The French Dispatch”). The cinematography is by Robert D. Yeoman (“The French Dispatch,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom”). Production designer is Adam Stockhausen (“The French Dispatch,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom”). Editor is Barney Pilling (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”).

“Asteroid City” deserves multiple Oscar nominations, including best picture, screenplay, director, actor (Schwartzman) and actress (Johannson).

“Asteroid City” is whimsical, intriguing and laugh-out-loud funny. It’s a refreshing snow cone of comedy for the summer.

Get in your vehicle, take a friend and drive to a movie theater to visit “Asteroid City.” You may want to travel there again, or never leave.

“Asteroid City,”

MPAA rated PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.) for brief graphic nudity, smoking and some suggestive material; Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance; Run time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. Distributed by Focus Features.

Credit Readers Anonymous:

There’s an homage to Warner Bros. “Road Runner” cartoons in “Asteroid City.” A Road Runner crosses the highway and then, during the end credits, trots back forth rhythmically and even moonwalks to the song, “Freight Train,” by The Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group, Nancy Whiskey. The movie was filmed in Spain and Arizona.

At The Movies:

“Asteroid City” was seen in the standard format at the AMC Center Valley 16.

Theatrical Movie Domestic Box Office,

July 7-9: “Insidious: The Red Door,” directed by and starring Patrick Wilson, opened at No. 1 with $32.6 million in 3,188 theaters, dialing down “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” from its No. 1 place to No. 2 with $26.5 million in 4,600 theaters, $121.2 million, two weeks.

3. “Sound of Freedom,” starring Jim Caviezel as a former government agent who rescues children in Colombia, opening, $18.2 million in 2,852 theaters, $40.2 million since July 4 opening. 4. “Elemental” dropped two places, $9.6 million in 3,440 theaters, $109.1 million, four weeks. 5. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” dropped two places, $8 million in 3,023 theaters, $357.6 million, six weeks. 6. “Joy Ride,” opening, $5.8 million in 2,820 theaters. 7. “No Hard Feelings” dropped three places, $5.2 million in 2,686 theaters, $40.4 million, three weeks. 8. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” dropped three places, $5 million in 2,475 theaters, $146.7 million, five weeks. 9. “The Little Mermaid” dropped two places, $3.5 million in 2,080 theaters, $289 million, seven weeks. 10. “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” dropped four places, $2.8 million in 3,408 theaters, $11.5 million, two weeks. 11. “Asteroid City” dropped two places, $2.2 million in 1,111 theaters, $23.9 million, four weeks.

Movie box office information from Box Office Mojo as of July 9 is subject to change.

Theatrical Movie Domestic Box Office,

June 30 - July 2: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” with Harrison Ford starring in the fifth and final in the franchise, opened at No. 1 with $60.3 million.

2. “Elemental” stayed at No. 2 with $12.1 million in 3,650 theaters, $89.6 million, three weeks. 3. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” dropped from No. 1 back to No. 3 with $12 million in 3,405 theaters, $340.3 million, five weeks. 4. “No Hard Feelings” stayed in place, $7.8 million in 3,208 theaters, $29.6 million, two weeks. 5. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” stayed in place, $7.3 million in 2,852 theaters, $136.4 million, four weeks. 6. “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” opening, $5.5 million in 3,400 theaters. 7. “The Little Mermaid” stayed in place, $5.3 million in 2,430 theaters, $281.2 million, six weeks. 8. “The Flash” dropped five places, $5.2 million in 2,718 theaters, $99.4 million, three weeks. 9. “Asteroid City” dropped three places, $4.2 million in 1,901 theaters, $18.6 million, three weeks. 10. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” dropped two places, $2 million in 1,165 theaters, $355 million, nine weeks.

Movie box office information from Box Office Mojo as of July 2 is subject to change.

Theatrical Movie Domestic Box Office,

June 23 - 25: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” swung up from No. 3, regaining its No. 1 spot, with $19 million in 3,785 theaters, $316.7 million, four weeks, as “Elemental” stayed at No. 2 with $18.4 million in 4,035 theaters, $65.4 million, two weeks, and “The Flash” dropped from its one-week run at No. 1 to No. 3 with $15.1 million in 4,256 theaters, $87.5 million, two weeks.

4. “No Hard Feelings,” opening, $15 million in 3,208 theaters. 5. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” dropped one place with $11.7 million in 3,523 theaters, $123.1 million, three weeks. 6. “Asteroid City” moved up four places, $9 million in 1,675 theaters, $10.2 million, two weeks. 7. “The Little Mermaid” dropped two places, $8.5 million in 3,275 theaters, $270.1 million, five weeks. 8. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” dropped one place, $3.4 million in 2,010 theaters, $351 million, eight weeks. 9. “The Blackening” dropped three places, $3 million in 1,775 theaters, $12.2 million, two weeks. 10. “The Boogeyman” dropped two places, $2. million, $37.7 million, four weeks.

Movie box office information from Box Office Mojo as of June 25 is subject to change.

Unreel,

July 12

“Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One,”

MPAA rated PG-13: Christopher McQuarrie directs Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson and Hayley Atwell in the Action, Adventure Thriller. Ethan Hunt must locate a dangerous weapon.

Five Popcorn Boxes out of Five Popcorn Boxes