Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the novel by Roald Dahl, directed by Wes Anderson and adapted by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, charms and delights from start to finish. The stop-motion animation has a wonderful (both high-quality and filled-with-wonder) aesthetic that provides the perfect environment for Anderson’s film making, which has always been a bit more full of art and fancy than realism. It’s virtually guaranteed to be Anderson’s most commercially successful film to date, and is arguably his best realized creation since Rushmore.
The story follows the exploits of the eponymous Fox, a master thief who pledges to go straight when his wife announces the impending birth of his oldest son. But in his heart, as happens in every caper film—and this is as much a heist movie as anything—Fox is hungry for one last score. Moving his family into a home adjacent to three notoriously brutal farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean (one fat, one short, one lean), Fox is overcome by temptation and reverts to his scheming and thieving ways. Most of the movie follows the consequences that Fox’s actions bring down upon to his family and his critter community, and Fox’s efforts to correct his mistakes and redeem himself.
The movie is populated by a cast of well-realized animals and villainous humans. Fox (voiced by George Clooney, well-cast) is a grandiose and gregarious anti-hero who can’t seem to overcome his wild-animal nature. His wife (Meryl Streep) is long-suffering and disapproving, but not in a cliched-disapproving-wife sort of way—it’s frequently clear she has the more reasonable argument. Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman puts in a good turn as Fox’s dorky, different, approval-seeking son, Ash. (Other Anderson stand-bys like Bill Murray and Owen Wilson make appearances in smaller roles.) Michael Gambon does some great voice work as Bean, the baddest of the three baddies.
Dahl understood as well as any author that you must never condescend or dumb down anything when writing for kids. Anderson takes this idea and runs with it. The dialogue is full of the sort of quirky awareness found in his other movies. Children won’t mind, for example when Fox responds to Ash’s question, “Do you think I’m an athlete?” with “What’s the subtext?,” even if they don’t understand what subtext is; they will know that father and son aren’t clicking. Perhaps most importantly, the film successfully avoids the pitfall of most “kids” movies: making the plot subservient to a heavy-handed message. Of course, there are themes and even morals that underlying the story, but the movie never loses sight of the fact that this is a caper tale, and a pretty funny one at that.
One thing parents may want to know: there’s a lot of “cussing” in this movie. Cussing is in quotes, because here, all of the cussing involves involves the word “cuss” and nothing more. As in “What the cuss?” and, in one memorable instance “cluster cuss.” Thankfully, there’s nothing much objectionable in the movie at all, despite the fact that it was written as if for adults. The foxes sometimes do kill, because that’s what foxes do, but it’s not frightening, gory nor dwelled upon longer than is needed. One of the villains smokes and several characters drink (including Bean’s hard cider). There are plenty of moments of peril, but I didn’t notice anything I would hesitate to show my three year old. And I also wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this movie to my childless friends either, which is also saying something.
The animation is, in fact, fantastic. Nothing appears to be computer animated, and this isn’t claymation either. Rather, it’s true stop-motion, with effects that are purely physical: fire is represented by red and yellow cutouts, and smoke by billowing gray wisps of cotton. We don’t often get to see stop-motion done this well. There are some scenes so detailed it would be worth a repeat viewing just to see what was missed the first time through. I imagine this movie will be contending with Pixar’s Up for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. And it’s good enough to actually make it a contest.
Posted on November 24, 2009, in Movies. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
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High praise indeed. I haven’t heard much about this movie but now I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for the great review.
You had me at “Roald Dahl.” Thanks for the review!
What’s the Dahl-to-Anderson ratio? In other words, if I like Dahl but generally hate Anderson’s movies, is there any chance I’d like this?
Brian V: I think it’s about equal parts. Wes Anderson has definitely put his stamp on it, particularly with the dialogue. If you strongly dislike Wes Anderson, there’s a chance you could dislike this.
Dahl has a pretty great track record as far as movie adaptations go. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, Mathilda, James and the Giant Peach, and now The Fantastic Mr. Fox have all been made into good movies.
Greg, it sounds like there’s little to worry about in taking the kids regarding objectionable content. The more important question to me is whether it will interest and entertain them (six and four year olds).
Thoughts?
Thanks for this great review. I’m excited to see this, with or without the kids.
I think kids will love it. They may not follow much of the dialogue, but the story is very straight forward and the movie is very visual. A lot of the humor is based on sight gags and phyisical humor. Think of the old Looney Tunes cartoons, or maybe Rocky and Bullwinkle–a lot of the topical humor goes right over the heads of children, but kids love it anyway. Kids are used to living in a world they don’t understand. The movie moves at a pretty fast pace, and it has talking animals. That should be enough to keep the kids interested.
Ryan,I think a 4 and 6 year old would miss most of the dialogue, but there’s always a lot of action going on, and the basic premise is easy enough to understand (fox likes to steal chickens and cider, farmers try to kill fox — kind of like Peter Rabbit, only funny). Also, the animals and sets are cute and look like a really great play set.
I love the look of this movie, it’s enough to get me there. I’m even happier my kids will like it.
As long as your kids have a taste for smugness, that is.
smugness = Bugs Bunny. ‘Nuff said.
Was just meh for me. Mary and Max should win Best Animation.
smugness = Bugs Bunny. ‘Nuff said.
Uh, OK. I’m not sure how this relates to the topic at hand, but sure. I would point out the difference that Bugs Bunny is a single character within a universe of varied characters, whereas I was talking about a filmmaker’s entire oeuvre. Chuck Jones to Wes Anderson would’ve been a more apt comparison, but smugness (or any other single tone) does not override Jones’s work like it does Anderson’s.
Just saw it and I was impressed. I had been wondering how they’d fill the story out to make it movie length and they did something very interesting. Rather than start and end where the book does and add a bunch in between they start before the book does, add a little bit in between and then add another book’s worth of material at the end. So much of the first half of the movie is straight put of the book. There are several parts where the book is quoted directly. So if you want the purest amount of Dahl leave about halfway through. But then you’d miss some of the best bits.
Ok we rented this movie this weekend. Really funny. I loved it and my kids loved it (though probably not for the same reasons).
I saw Rushmore a few weeks ago. As I watched Mr. Fox I was thinking this sort of reminds me of Rushmore except it is waaaaay better.
Royal Tennenbaums is still his best by far. But I really liked Fox as well.