College is finally over for this semester, and I finally have some time to watch movies again! Hooray! To reinvigorate my DVD review section, here’s the review of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
If 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 Clooney), a fox who gave up his career as a thief to become a newspaperman for his wife (Meryl Streep) and son Ash (Jason Schwartzman). When Mr. Fox decides to do one last heist on farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean(Michael Gambon), the farmers decide they must kill him.
The film itself is a marvelous tour-de-force of stop-motion animation, and, as stated in my review, is a throwback to the Bass-Rankin stop-motion animated holiday films. The story is also highly imaginative, witty, and tightly written.
The DVD extras are just enough to accent the film itself. As you know (and have probably come to expect), most DVDs come with a ton of bonus features that you don’t really need. To paraphrase Tim Gunn, the makers of this DVD seemed to have used an editing eye when it comes to features, and only put in the right amount.One featurette on bringing the script to the screen, another on creating movement with puppets, and one more about Whack-Bat is really all you need, and luckily, it’s about all you get.
Overall, this DVD is one that is definitely worth the money.
Fantastic Mr. Fox, standard widescreen edition, is $16.96 at Wal-Mart. The widescreen Blu-Ray edition-which also comes with a standard DVD and digital copy-is $19. 96, also at Wal-Mart.
