Fox Hole Puppetry

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2010)

Wes Anderson never tells traditional stories and never in a traditional manner. Since he entered the artistic world with "Bottle Rocket" in 1996, he treated us to accessible fare (the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums") and bits that are a little harder to swallow ("The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," "The Darjeeling Limited"), constantly keeping it entertaining and whimsical. So who better to discard CGI imagery and take one big step back to good ol' fashioned stop motion animation in order to tell Road Dahl's classic story (with a few liberties taken in the script)? George Clooney's recognizable voice is ideally cast to bring sly Mr. Fox to puppet life, and Meryl Streep, sounding a little restrained, is a pleasure as his wife - that would be Mrs. Fox. Long-time Anderson regulars (Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and - yes - Bill Murray) lend their voices to all sorts of critters. The story eases along fluidly with wryly funny - but not sitcommy - dialogue, and the scenery is so stunningly beautiful that you tend to forget how many hours of work must have gone into this little gem. Yet it all looks so deceptively simple.