Stop Americanising everything!

Rating: 2/10 (26 March 2013)

Yes, Americanising. With emo kids, animals who work in companies, a failing marriage, all the drama.... just please stop.
Roald Dahl is my favourite writer. It was thanks to his books that I became an avid reader as a child, and Fantastic Mr. Fox was his first book I read that lead me to discover the joys of reading.
It had witty humor and the reader would savor the idea of eating plump chickens, juicy geese and syrupy cider. The point was that simple animals could outwit man and his machines - it was about survival from a wild creature's point of view, of course with all the humour thrown in.
The movie completely tramples on this point and instead portrays the animal world much like our human world, with lawyers, loans and mortgages. What is going on here? What made it worse is that the movie dumbed everything down into an American soap opera - Mr. Fox has a worn out marriage with his purple-eyed wife (?) and they have only one child, who is a rebellious teenager. The weird cousin comes over, and I seriously don't comprehend what he contributes to the plot - he just stands there awkwardly and behaves like victim of abuse with all his frightened stares.
The story barely focuses on the delicious food but instead on the drama and making it look like the overused Ocean's Eleven shtick. Instead of rooting for the characters like in the book, in the movie I didn't bond with them and I didn't care about their fates.
I give this a 2 out of 10 because it takes a lot of effort to create a decent stop animated movie, but plot-wise it was a complete disregard for Dahl's work and wit. Let your child or younger sibling read the book, it is a very entertaining read, while the movie is very forgettable.