Wes Anderson should make a box-set of his films and title it: "Movies to Slit Your Wrists To"

Rating: 2/10 (2 February 2010)

Note to parents or anyone else who likes upbeat "feel-good" animated movies: This isn't one of them.
This isn't for kids.
Hell, it's not even for most adults.
The problem is the quirkiness of the story, the dry humor, and the drag-on-forever plot. All of Anderson's films (see Royal Tenenbaums & Life Aquatic especially) can be called "quirky" or "odd". They are not "feel good movies and I've not watched one of them where there wasn't a character that suffered from severe depression or some other psychological problem of some sort. This character-type, coupled with The Fantastic Mr. Fox's animation, made for a mildly creepy blend & a barely watchable hour and a half. Wes Anderson doesn't know how to MAKE a happy movie. He doesn't know how to do anything other than make films that seem to propagate the same formula: create awkward films that make the viewer uncomfortable, fill it furthermore with depressing, cynical scenarios of family & social dysfunction and try to market them as "humor." Wes Anderson should market a box-set of his films and title it: "Movies to Slit Your Wrists To"... For the love of Pete, this guy needs therapy and a good bottle of antidepressants! I'm not sure why there seems to be a strange group of people who ENJOY this kind of dark, cynical, depressing comedy. How anyone on earth could find it ENJOYABLE to sit and watch a group of characters loathe their lives, deal with awful bosses with subhuman social skills, & family dysfunction is beyond me. MOST normal people go to a movie to ESCAPE those kinds of things and ENJOY themselves! Why ANYONE would want to spend $8 - 15 to sit and watch the same kind of depressing situations on screen that they are forced to deal with in everyday life is ludicrous to me! Clooney adds little depth of character with his voice-over for the self-absorbed, kleptomaniacal Mr. Fox, & the "dysfunctional family routine with the quirky emo kid(s) that the father doesn't appreciate" sub-plot was already overplayed in Royal Tenenbaums. It's tiresome. I'm sick of seeing it in so many movies in the last few years, it's nauseating -- from Little Miss Sunshine to Horton Hears a Who, to this movie.
In all honesty, the movie was so boring & unenjoyable to me that I literally have it stopped in the middle and have been entertaining myself now by writing this scathing review.
How I rated it: VISUALS/ANIMATION: 5 I liked the style, but it would have worked better in a "happier" movie.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 2 WHAT character development? CASTING: 5 EXCELLENT casting choices with Clooney, Bill Murray, & Meryl Streep but HORRIBLE script.
SCRIPT/DIALOGUE: 4 The cleverness of the way the characters "cuss" at each other was noteworthy, but why bother with censoring the swearing when the movie's tone is so adult-oriented in the first place? PLOT: 2 Ugh. Nuff said.
MOVEMENT OF STORY: 2 You'd need Ex-Lax to get this moving faster.
ABILITY TO GET YOU HOOKED & KEEP YOU INTERESTED: -5 Boring. Drab. Depressing.
ABILITY FOR PEOPLE TO RELATE TO CHARACTERS: 3 GREAT if you like depressing, self-absorbed characters.
OVERALL GRADE: D