Anderson has gone on record citing the influence of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki on “Isle of Dogs.” Films like “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro” depict Miyazaki’s visions of Japan in ways that are both awe-inspiringly beautiful and terrifying. Even in his least successful ventures, the attention to world-building detail is staggering. You would think Anderson would be the perfect director to pay homage to this master of animation; no other director working today has a bigger compulsion for visuals than Anderson. But unlike the warm Miyazaki, Anderson is a very cold director. He keeps everything at an annoying hipster’s ironic distance, valuing aesthetics over meaning and context. This may work in the spaces of Anderson’s meticulously crafted universe of films like “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums,” but “Isle of Dogs” is set in an actual foreign country whose culture and traditions Anderson unwisely commandeers. The results are cringe-worthy.

“Isle of Dogs” takes place in Anderson’s rather skewed interpretation of Japan. It’s a place where every explosion is rendered as a cutesy mushroom cloud and the public speeches always include haiku. It’s also a place where man’s best friend has been banished due to a dangerous outbreak of “dog flu,” which is apparently harmful to humankind. However, instead of being euthanized, each infected canine is dropped on a trash-filled island that evokes memories of “Wall-E.” As a show of solidarity with dismayed dog owners throughout the city of Megasaki, its mayor deports his own dog, Spots (voice of Liev Schreiber). Spots is the first of many dogs who will inhabit Trash Island, and he is the only one who’s privy to a rescue mission from the mainland.

12-year old Atari (voice of Koyu Rankin) is the mayor’s ward, an orphan whose parents were killed in a tragic accident. Spots was his companion and his security detail. He and Atari wore earpieces which served as a tracking device. Atari plans to use his earpiece to help him find his beloved pet. After crash landing his plane on the island, Atari meets the group of alpha dogs who serve as the film’s main characters. They’re a motley crew to say the least, and despite being born and raised in Japan, they don’t understand Japanese at all.