When he’s “on,” Wes Anderson’s films are giddy, deadpan delights, sparkling with wit and touching in the vulnerable and comically absurd human foibles they celebrate.

But when he’s “off,” brace yourself for 100 minutes of production-designed preciousness, airless laughs that stop landing and strained attempts at “meaning” above and beyond all the “twee.”

The dry, allegorical period piece “The Phoenician Scheme” is on the same arid plane as “Asteroid City,” and a far cry from the droll, quirky peak Anderson achieved with “The Grand Budapest Hotel” or the romantic, eccentric nostalgia of “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

I thought he’d found his best destiny with the Roald Dahl shorts he packaged for Netflix under the title “The World of Henry Sugar and Three More.” And the cinema is a richer place whenever he turns his attention to stop-motion animations like “The Fantastic Mister Fox” and “Isle of Dogs.”

But “Phoenician” indulges his worst instincts, an over-populated — his repertory company is huge and getting moreso — dry and often dull bore, a waste of “names” and talent that feels starved of comic oxygen or inscrutable “meaning,” start to finish.

Fans of any chance to board the train or 1950 propeller plane trip to Wes Andersonland can always find moments and comic touches to relish. Star Benicio del Toro and Riz Ahmed as a Saudi prince play a game of basketball “HORSE” — “First to five wins.” — with Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston in an unfinished train tunnel, with the hoop attached to the end of a rail car. Hilarously nonsensical shouting matches between shady financiers named “Marseilles Bob” (Mathieu Amalric) and Marty (Jeffrey Wright) tickle, as Wright has mastered Anderson rat-a-tat patter better than anyone. The latest hapless confessions of love from Michael Cera (his “brand”) to an inexpressive novitiate nun and heiress (Mia Threapleton), with Cera sporting a Norwegian accent, compensates for the abence of Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman in this latest collaboration between Anderson and Schwartzman’s cousin, Roman Coppola.

Naming his villainous hero Zsa Zsa Korda, riffing on a famous for being famous Hungarian American and an accomplished Anglo Hungarian British filmmaker of the ’40s, serving up Benedict Cumberbatch as a villain wearing Orson Welles’ eyebrow and forked beard from the cult classic “Mister Arkadin” are among the nods to the film buffs in Anderson’s fanbase.

It’s just that the cameos — F. Murray Abraham and Willem Dafoe as “angels” debating the anti-hero’s fate before “God” (Bill Murray) — and screwy bits don’t add up to much or much that amuses or enlightens this time out.

Korda (del Toro) is a shady 1950 developer/financier whom the world’s financial powers that be — seen plotting in a “war room” council headed by Rupert Friend — cannot seem to bring to heel. Korda survives plane crashes and other assassination attempts because he has to in order to pull off his biggest gamble ever.

The Phoenician Scheme is a massive Middle Eastern modernization that includes The Trans Desert Inland Waterway (canal), The Trans Basin Hydroelectric Embankment (a dam) and the almost-finished Trans-Mountain Locomotive Tunnel.

Korda, fretting over the infighting among his assorted financiers and others who want him dead, summons his deadpan daughter Liesl (Threapleton) from her convent to assume the role of heir to his empire.

He has nine sons he barely connects with — “I bought Jasper a crossbow.” — so the young woman who thinks he killed her mother — “They say you murdered all your wives.” — is to take over.

She will “pray on the matter,” and accompany him and his all-things-insectoid tutor (Cera) as Korda charms an Arab prince (Ahmed), wrangles with the Sacremento Consortium (Hanks and Cranston, California brothers named Reagan and Leland) and arm-twists Marseilles Bob (Amalric) and The Newark Syndicate (Wright) to see to it that his scheme bears fruit.

Those “Gaps” in Korda’s plans are literal — the rail lines don’t quite link up in the tunnel — and financial/metaphorical.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Scarlett Johansson play women from Korda’s life. Every near death experience he survives has him envisioning angels (Abraham, Dafoe, etc) debating his fate in black and white, and every time he recovers, Korda peppers his offspring, employees and partners with worthless aphorisms, life advice that doesn’t really scan.

“Break, but don’t bend.” Don’t just buy art, “always buy masterpieces.” And “help yourself to a hand grenade.”

Every line is delivered with the same flat deadpan that’s been Anderson’s trademark since Gwyneth Paltrow and Bill Murray perfected it. Every setting — even the most austere ones — are designed and decorated to airless perfection.

Hope pops up whenever a Johansson or Richard Ayode makes an entrance (as a freedom fighter shooting up Marseilles Bob’s Casablanaca nightclub). But nothing much comes from the scores of cameos this time out.

There are chuckles here and there, but one gets the sense that this parable about an oligarch who might grow a heart — or get what he has coming to him — was about three drafts shy of a finished script. Or that Anderson and co-writer Coppola never had the nerve to tackle whatever it is that they were going for.

Like any fan, I’ll watch anything Anderson turns his attention to. But all the stars and star cameos, all the jaunty, classical music needle drops, all the del Toro drollery, the “lost boys” cadre of Korda kids and the Middle Eastern history hinted at in the “schemes” can’t paper over how flat and empty this “scheme” turns out to be.

Rating: PG-13, violence, nudity, smoking, “suggestive material”

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Richard Ayode, Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Charlotte Gainsbourg, F. Murray Abraham, Bill Murray, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hanks.

Credits: Directed by Wes Anderson, scripted by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. A Focus Features release.

Running time: 1:41