Arch-duke of whimsy and man who always looks like he’s auditioning for Doctor Who, Wes Anderson returns with this retrofuturist recreation of a play about an alien landing. And if you think Anderson doing sci-fi sounds interesting, you probably haven’t seen Isle of Dogs.

It sounds weird to accuse Anderson of self-parody, when his singular style has remained essentially unchanged for 20 years. But there is an emptiness behind the meticulous ridiculousness this time that feels as barren as its desert setting. Whatever you thought of their hipster hyperstylisation, films like The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch could hardly be said to lack stories. Here Anderson is wilfully obtuse, staging a play within a TV show within a film; layers of artifice obscuring what little story there is about a 1950s youth astronomy convention.

The fact Anderson is deliberately drawing attention to the greasepaint and facades doesn’t change the probability that people like his films for their comedy, energy and pathos, not their Brechtian alienation devices. Even those who simply relish his visuals will find little wonder in Asteroid City, with nothing approaching the perfectionist tableaux of The French Dispatch. Bizarrely for a film with such a massive comedy cast (including Jason Schwartzman, Bryan Cranston and Steve Carell), there are few actual characters and even fewer laughs, making the experience a lot of effort for scant reward.