The bleached-out color palette may have been intended to convey the blinding sunshine of the desert, but it looked like my old TV from the 1970s when you turned the Brightness knob up too far. Making the movie uncomfortable to watch and difficult to discern details was not the right choice.
The framing device, where Bryan Cranston narrates a black-and-white 1950s documentary about the production of a new stage play, felt mostly like Wes Anderson being clever for its own sake, and for the sake of padding out the running time of a 105 minute movie.
I also find it frustrating when Wes Anderson's talent draws A-list talent to every role, yet Tom Hanks gets one brief closeup in the entire movie. I am not expecting Scorsese-level camera movement and dynamics from Anderson, but it's no fun watching Hanks play a crotchety grandfather while totally motionless in a medium shot in profile. This is not a new Anderson problem, I just feel it more here. Also not new to Anderson: with two dozen names above the title, hardly anyone gets enough screen time.