Fantastic Mr. Fox

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2012)

Mr. Fox (George Clooney) used to be a highly-skilled food thief, until the day his wife (Meryl Streep) announced she was pregnant. Now he's a newspaper columnist, yet still gets that itch. When he scratches it, the farmers he steals from decide to get their revenge...
As adaptations go, Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl's children's classic could be defined as "loose". That doesn't make the film unendurable, but it does mean that this film loses just a hint of the magic that other adaps of Dahl's work have.
The stop-motion puppetry, though at times a little crude, is still deserving of applause; it's different, you don't see this kind of animation any more. The crudeness actually helps to define it as a Wes Anderson film: slightly off-beat, odd ball with a quietly delicious sense of surreal humour. Why hasn't Anderson done animation sooner? In fact, one could argue that with his style of storytelling Anderson is quietly becoming one of the few auteurs that there are in the world today.
An impressive voice cast - recorded out in the real world for most scenes instead of studios - help to bring the story to life, though Anderson's attempts to flesh the characters out sometimes create more of a problem. In particular, Bean the cider farmer (Michael Gambon) is promoted to head villain, whereas in the original novel all three farmers are equal in importance and hate for the fox.
The script finishes the main story of the novel two-thirds into the film, before branching out into a rescue mission for an abandoned fox cub. This actually works quite well, and is helped by good jokes, great animation and a nifty score. The music is lovely in this film throughout, including a great cameo by Jarvis Cocker.
Purists wont like it, and the very young will probably feel alienated by it, something a closer adaptation might have avoided, but on the whole this is a lovely film, a great addition to Anderson's work.
7/10