A Quirky Animated Feature

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2010)

Roald Dahl is an incredible children's author and his books are very British affairs, with a bit of his Norwegian backgrounds and legends thrown in. So it was worry that one of his novels was being turned into a American film, with an American director and cast. But fortunately it is a good film.
Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is a successful hunter and poacher of farm animals and he has amazing abilities avoiding traps. But when his wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) is pregnant, Mr. Fox gives up his hunting ways for his family. Two Years later (twelve fox years), Mr. Fox is bored with his life so decides to go for one last big score, robbing the three meaning farmers in the valley, Boggis, Bunce and Bean. But by robbing them Bean (Michael Gambon) leads the farmers one a hunt, doing everything they can to kill Mr. Fox and his family. Whilst this adventure and heist is going on, Mr. Fox's son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) develops a rivalry with his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) because of his intelligence and athletic ability and Mr. Fox ending up favouring him over his own son.
The director Wes Anderson is one of the darlings of American indie cinema. He wrote and shot Fantastic Mr. Fox almost like an indie film, particularly the family drama about a son trying to prove himself to his father and a man (or this case a fox) having to fight against his nature. The way some of the sequences are shot and move reminded me of classic platformer games, particularly Sonic the Hedgehog and the undergrounds scenes showing the network of tunnels was like the first version of Worms.
Fantastic Mr. Fox works as a heist film with Mr. Fox coming up with plans to rob the farmers, who is arrogant about his abilities and ignores his family because of his exploits. They is a lot of humour in the film involving the lines and dialogue and some visual gags: but this was not a film that does not have as much appeal to young children as it should have. There are still gags that children will like though. A running gag in the film is Bean giving orders over a walkie-talkie. There is a fight between Mr. Fox and Rat (Willem Dafoe) which was skilfully done when they are jumping up in the air in the darkness with lightening flashing so it was quick still images.
The animation style is style and on the trailers it did look weak. But it worked in the film; the designs of all the animals and humans are detailed and I do have a soft-spot for stop-motion animation. Stop-motion allows for more real world physic and detailed characters and set designs, like the painting of the badgers. The movement is fluid, like in the platformer style sequences, but other scenes were crude and not that well done, like the digging, the flooding and the dancing looked like a student film working on a limited budget . One thing I also don't understand is why the animals are American (i.e, opossums and beavers) let the town looks like an old fashioned English town.
Wes Anderson shot the film almost like a live action film, obviously directing how he knows best. It just small touches like the way the camera zooms into towards a face or the wide shots, giving the film a extra in it's cinematography.
There is an excellent voice cast and both Wes Anderson and Spike Jonze with Where the Wild Things Are actually got their voice actors together and performed the film and get a more natural performance out the actors. The traditional way is for the actor to stand in a room and say the line in about 25 different ways with the director and editor picks the best version. Many of the actors in Fantastic Mr. Fox are natural comic performances and many of them had good chemistry. Clooney leads the film well and Bill Murray and Wallace Wolodarsky had a very good, funny supporting roles.
Finally there is a good soundtrack in this film, with songs from the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, to banjo music and the playful score by Alexandre Desplat.