With AI imitations of his filmmaking shtick causing a storm on social media, Wes Anderson returns with the real deal. The received wisdom is that you either love or hate the work of this idiosyncratic director. For all its finesse, even fans may find themselves a tad underwhelmed by his eleventh feature, Asteroid City.

Ensuring things look as glorious as ever, Anderson welcomes us into the painstakingly realised world of the titular desert town. Asteroid City is presented to us by host Bryan Cranston as the brainchild of Edward Norton’s playwright. There are stories within stories as we meet a cast of characters that includes Scarlett Johansson’s smouldering actress and Jason Schwartzman’s widowed war photographer. They’ve gathered with their offspring for a young astronomers’ convention, which is shaken up by the appearance of a gangly, bug-eyed alien who steals the town’s treasured meteorite fragment.

Asteroid City has a palette that positively screams summer as it twins orangey skin-tones with sandy backdrops and pastel embellishments. Unfortunately, it can be as cold as ice-cream. The performances are as deadpan as you’d expect, but the story never springs to life, while the meta digressions are more frustrating than fun.

Despite the presence of some extraterrestrial shenanigans, Asteroid City feels like one of Anderson’s least out-of-this-world efforts. If it’s not quite as funny as you’d hope, the film does have its moments: the alien (at one point played by Jeff Goldblum) is hilarious; Johansson brings oodles of charisma to her surly and sad star; and Tilda Swinton is game as an incompetent scientist who’s easily outshone by a group of brainiac kids.

Asteroid City is in cinemas from Friday 23 June.