Fantastic Mr. Fox

Courtesy of austincinephile.com

Quite a bit late to the game, I went to see Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox last night.  Based on the book by Roald Dahl, the story follows Mr. Fox, his family, and friends as they have adventures and mishaps – all due to Mr. Fox’s mischievous nature.

After settling down with a newspaper column (after finding out that Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) was with child), Mr. Fox (George Clooney) decides that he no longer wishes to live in a hole – but a tree instead.  Not only that, but he longs for the days when he was stealing birds from farmers.  It is then that he decides to take on the three biggest/most successful farmers there are – Boggis, a chicken farmer; Bunce, a duck and goose farmer; and Bean an apple farmer who makes a mean [alcoholic] cider (voiced by Michael Gambon).

Mr. Fox comes up with a master plan, and with the aid of his possum friend, Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky), they put the plan into action.  Each night, they successfully hit each farm, until they come to Bean’s apple farm where they run into a bit of trouble from Rat (Willem Dafoe), Bean’s cider security guard.  Much to their luck, they’ve enlisted the help of Fox’s nephew, Kristofferson Silverfox (Eric Anderson), an ace athlete who takes Rat down and they manage to escape.  From there, the farmers decide to wage war on Mr. Fox, his family, and the entire underground animal kingdom.

This film, with original music by Jarvis Cocker (as Petey), is such a delight.  It’s really fun to watch stop-motion, the attention to detail is very clever – there is a romantic scene between Mr and Mrs Fox with this song from Disney’s Robin Hood playing softly in the background; and it is wildly funny!

Normally, I am not terribly excited about this; however, I am pleased that I got to see this film in a theatre with children, as I can attest to how much they also enjoyed it and were laughing right along with the adults.  Therefore, parents, if any of you are worried that your children may not enjoy this – rest assured that kids love it.

I have always enjoyed Wes Anderson’s films, and this film certainly is no exception.  It’s got the feel (and soundtrack) of his live-action films, but with a little extra.  I definitely hope to see more animation from him in the future, as you can tell that he (along with everyone else) had so much fun with this one.  It is definitely not to be missed.