A Triumph for Stopmotion, But Not Much Else

Rating: 4/10 (1 January 2013)

This is a strange film. I don't know if I like it or not, it's hard to tell. Let's see:
The animation is fantastic. It's beautiful to watch and every time you see the film you'll notice something new going on in the background. It bravely attempts unrealistic scenes such as when the animals are digging, and these add to the quirkiness of the film. There are no complaints in this regard, the animators have done a good job.
Perhaps then you should watch this with the sound down. The script is mediocre at best. It did draw a few laughs but this was chiefly as a result of the animation rather than the actual joke. There is little correlation with the book, which in some films is needed, but it is overdone here. If Dahl was alive today I doubt he would have enjoyed this adaptation. To paraphrase Cosmo Landesman of The Sunday Times, it lacks the elements of child abuse, violence and the peril that the book captured. This is replaced by a yawn-inducing conflict with Mr Fox and his wife, in a strange attempt to make it "relevant," instead adding another cliché to the pile. Mr Fox himself is completely cliché throughout, and I felt absolutely no doubt that somehow he would overcome the problem presented by the story-line. For a children's film this is not what we want. When the film finally limped in to finish, I greeted it with relief rather than happiness.
The soundtrack is another so-so feature. There are few moments when it really fits in well, but it does the job and I have no problem with that.
The main feature of controversy is the bizarre "americanisation" of the story. This really sucks a lot of the film's soul out. Why give the heroes American accents and the villains British accents? Oh yeah, because that's what viewers want, apparently. Another cliché is added to the pile and led to me losing my interest even more. The addition of things American viewers would expect to find like supermarkets does this film no favours. Or should I say favor.
In conclusion, should you watch this film? No. Unless you are determined to encourage the sort of rubbish the American film industry is churning out nowadays, with dull adaptations of British classics, then there is little reason to. I am being more harsh than I would normally be here because I am determined to see an end to this. A poor film that is killed by its own Americanisation.