brilliant adaptation of a classic story

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2010)

I made a conscious decision not to see Fantastic Mr. Fox at the cinema having seen the trailers and thought I wouldn't quite like the style of animation and therefore would not enjoy this, how I was wrong.
Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is having trouble settling down to family life after his life of chicken stealing, but when he moves in to his new tree, he finds three villainous farmers as his new neighbours he gets drawn back in for one last job.
The stop motion animation works perfectly for this with director Wes Anderson purposely using a slower frame rate to film it in so as your attention is not drawn away from the animation artwork. The tone of the film is excellent mixing humor, and it is quite a funny film, with heartfelt sentiment of a much loved children's book.
There were influences of the directors other films, most notably The Royal Tenembuams with the dysfunctional family and Mr Fox's struggle to find common ground with his son Ash (Jason Swartzman). Watch out for former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker's cameo halfway through with a brilliant musical highlight, I also thought the use of blueberries to take out guard dogs was particularly in genius.
An animation of a children's book this may be but I cannot see a child taking any thing from this as it is largely an adult affair. Over all an excellent, humorous adaptation of a Roald Dahl classic.