I thought the commericals were funny, but I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did while watching Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Almost every other line in the movie was some unique joke that was written in such an offbeat way that it seemed that the structure of the sentences added to the hilarity of the punchline. I wish I could write like that. (I think one of the biggest takeaways from this movie is the liberal use of “cuss” in substitution for actual slang words. “What the cuss?!”)
The plot is simple enough-the hero of this story, Mr. Fox (George Clooney), is a chicken stealer-turned-newspaperman in order to provide his wife Felicity (Meryl Streep) and inferority complex-ridden son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) some stability. But he feels like something’s missing from his life. So he buys a hollow tree for a house in order to feel like an ample provider for his family. But that still isn’t enough. So he involves his opossum friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky)-and later on, his agile, perfect-at-everything nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) into performing one last, huge heist: stealing from chicken farmer Walter Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), goose farmer Nathan Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and apple cider maker Franklin Bean (Michael Gambon a.k.a Dumbledore from Harry Potter).
What makes this movie so fantastic (no pun intended)? Well, a lot of things, First, this seems like one of Anderson’s most concise, tightly scripted movies yet. I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that he’s using a classic Roald Dahl book as his basis, but whatever he did with his script, he should do it again, and do it often.
Also, it’s amazing how old-school this movie feels in terms of the approach taken to the stop-motion animation. Remember the Rankin-Bass productions like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? This movie looks as tactile and handmade as those holiday films, which adds to the charm. It’s not slick-looking like Coraline or The Corpse Bride (which was made in the same studio as Mr. Fox), and that makes it stick out as unique.
Also unique are the way the actors were recorded for the film. The actors were held in the same room while recording their lines, and their rapport with each other seems much warmer than traditional animated movie recordings, where the actors are often recorded alone.
The music also adds to the overall fun and charm of the film, creating an even more uplifting, happy, and giddy experience. I think my favorite song from the film is “Fantastic Mr. Fox/Petey’s Theme”, Petey being a hippie-type guitar player (Jarvis Cocker) who serves no real purpose in the film except to sing his funny campfire song, and later to be interrupted by Bean, who tells him he has weak songwriting skills. There’s more about the music that should be said, but it will all be covered in my “Music Monday” segment tomorrow.
Overall, go see this film if you want to have a good, rousing time. You won’t leave disappointed.
[...] you missed my original review of the movie, click here, but the short rundown of the Roald Dahl-based film is that it centers around Mr. Fox (George [...]