[Movie] Fantastic Mr. Fox

My Sunday trips to the cinema are always quite fun, I do like to keep up with some of the more entertaining films out there, and share them with you all, of course. This week I was torn between the new CGI 9 and the new Wes Anderson, stop-motion, film adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. I sought advice from the nice people here at MoretotheGame, where some of my film reviews are cross-posted on Saturdays (HI STONE – Ed), as to which I should see. They said Fox, so Fox it was. I will probably pick up 9 at some point soon, so don’t panic.

Fantastic Mr. Fox Poster

Wes Anderson has often given us cartoonish characters in his films, take The Royal Tenenbaums for instance, so for him to bring us a stop-motion children’s film is hardly surprising. Although whether this is a children’s film at all I would question. Certainly there are many elements for children to enjoy, it is based on a Roald Dahl story after all, but to class this as a children’s film would seem a bit strange. Jokes about existentialism, Jarvis Cocker songs and a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking, none of which seem to make for a kid’s film, much more an animated Wes Anderson film.

Now, for those following me on Twitter reading my 140 character reviews as well as these, it may seem that I do these reviews, purely to confuse people, but I don’t. I simply prove that it’s hard to say everything in such a limited space. I said, in my 140 characters, “Fantastic Mr. Fox: Roald Dahl’s classic tale with more than a hint of America added. A good film, well voiced, and beautifully animated.” And that is true. It is a good film, and it is well voiced by talent like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon and the stop-motion, especially amongst all this CGI animation, is great. There is, however, not room in 140 characters to add “This is, however, a Wes Anderson film, not just a kid’s film.” And I wish there was.

Let me compare this film with the modern stop-motion masters that are Nick Park and Aardman. One thing this film does is prove that it isn’t just Aardman’s choice of animation style that makes the likes of Wallace and Gromit great. Aardman make films that work whether you are 7 or 70, and some added years either side as well, and the whole gap in the middle. This is because they know how to make the visual comedy work, and give wordy jokes are never too wordy. Fantastic Mr. Fox, however, has concentrated on aiming the look of the animation for kids, and hoped they won’t be paying attention when the fox says things like “comme ci, comme ca”.

It’s a good film. It does drift away from the original, adding just a little bit too much of the states to Buckinghamshire, even if 2000 individually labelled tins is impressive, the context isn’t quite right, it is more of an animated Wes Anderson film that an animated kid’s film from Wes Anderson, but the sound track is there, the voice talent is great and the visual style is spot on. So whilst any 7 year-olds thinking about going to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, who almost certainly aren’t reading this, may well be disappointed, any people who know what existentialism is, who would understand a Jarvis Cocker cameo and like Wes Anderson films, would probably leave happy.

And finally, I have a suggestion for how Wes, who also probably isn’t reading this, could have improved this. Take a page out of the book of someone who can do dark as well as kid friendly, like the Grimm fairy tales. Someone like Roald Dahl.

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This content is reposted from the Random Blog of Random Blogginess. The original post can be found here. It is used, with permission, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

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