“Consider the great directors of cinema and what are the qualities that spring to mind? A distinctive personal imprint. Profundity and imagination expressed on every level. Stylistic innovation. But when you think back on the work of the so-called greats, don’t you feel, deep in your soul, that something intangible is missing? Well, now the wily young maverick Wes Anderson has revealed exactly what was absent from Tarkovsky, Bresson, Welles and the rest: a merchandising tie-in with McDonald’s. True art, it seems, can co-exist after all with moist, defeated cheeseburgers and limp, glossy French fries. I do hope Cahiers du Cinema got the memo.”

The Guardian takes Wes Anderson to task

“None of which would be noteworthy in the slightest if the film in question were some DreamWorks piece of junk, or a knock-off directed by a hack. But even those of us who lost faith with Wes Anderson several films ago would agree that the director – and, one presumes, the studios with whom he works and the publicists who operate on his instructions – presents himself to the world as an auteur.”