a beautifully constructed animated world of imagination and fancy that will appeal to all ages

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2009)

Fantastic Mr Fox marks Wes Anderson's first foray into animation, and he uses the stop motion process effectively. Fantastic Mr Fox has been adapted from Roald Dahl's short story, and Anderson's droll sense of humor makes for a perfect match with Dahl's offbeat sensibility. It takes a certain sensibility to do justice to Roald Dahl's tales – Tim Burton beautifully adapted his Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and gave it a suitably surreal visual style that enriched the story – and Anderson has a similar aesthetic approach here. Mr Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is a lovable rogue. At the urging of his wife (Meryl Streep) though he is forced to give away his usual habits of stealing chickens and settle down with a regular job to support his family. He lands a job as a journalist. But surrounded by a chicken farm, a squab farm and a cider distillery, temptation is too great. Eventually he secretly reverts back to his old habits of raiding the local chicken warehouses at night. He is also seeking revenge on the evil farmer who blew off his tail with a shotgun. Boggins, Bean and Bunce, a trifecta of local farmers tired of his raids on their chicken farms, threaten to drive him away by destroying the woods he calls home. Mr Fox gathers together his friends and family to try and outwit them. He also has to deal with his self-absorbed slacker son Ash (Jason Schwartzmann). Ash falls into a funk when he finds himself constantly being compared to his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) who is spending the summer with his family, and who proves a dab hand at just about every activity he attempts. Anderson and his regular co-writer Noah Baumbach have expanded on the original source. While they still remain faithful to its spirit the pair have suffused the material with a layer of darkness. Anderson has stamped his own take on the story with his usual quirky and subversive wit. The insightful examination of the dynamics of the dysfunctional Fox family; is also a feature of his previous films like The Royal Tannenbaums. Anderson and his production team have created a vibrant and believable world for his characters to inhabit. The puppetry is superb, and the animals are given a real sense of texture. A superb voice cast brings the flawed characters to life, and apparently Anderson recorded them together in a sound booth on a Connecticut farm rather than in isolation in sound booths in a studio. Clooney is perfectly cast here as the incredibly daring Mr Fox; slick and very smooth his laid back comic approach reminds audiences of a foxy equivalent of his Danny Ocean character. His signature whistle and finger click becomes ingratiating. Streep is very good as his patient and knowing wife. Anderson has used many of his regulars to provide the voices for supporting characters, including Bill Murray, who plays a lawyer badger, Owen Wilson and Schwartzmann. Willem Dafoe provides the voice of a rat security guard, while Michael Gambon brings a touch of malevolence to his role as Farmer Bean. With Fantastic Mr Fox Anderson has created a beautifully constructed animated world of imagination and fancy that will appeal to all ages.