Alright, so for the sake of full disclosure Wes Anderson is probably my favourite writer/director working in Hollywood today. The others, because I know you were wondering, are M. Night Shyamalan and the Coen Brothers. That said, I’m reviewing The Fantastic Mr. Fox from a particular perspective, whether that’s a good or bad thing from Mr. Anderson in the end, you’ll have to read and find out.
Now I can remember, back after Life Aquatic was released, a lot of talk surrounding the idea of Wes Anderson doing an “animated†film. It was said that after filming the stop-motion puppet-animated portions of Life Aquatic, Anderson decided he’d like to do a full feature film in this style too. He loved working with puppets. So the idea for The Fantastic Mr. Fox was born.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox certainly feels like a Wes Anderson film. It’s quirky, full of life and interesting. It takes pieces of the mundane and makes them beautiful. It’s hilarious. It’s a wild ride and it’s characters are so full of life and unique. Adapted from a novel by an equally interesting an eccentric author, Roald Dahl, The Fantastic Mr. Fox follows the life of one family of foxes and they struggle to survive and come to terms with their personal identities. As you would expect from Anderson, we’re presented with an aging main character struggling to understand his place in the world as he grows older, a younger character on a similar journey of self-discovery and a motley crew of supporting characters. It’s standard Wes Anderson fair, with puppets.
But it’s good. The story is hilarious, its adaption is brilliant. The atmosphere itself, the puppets and all of that, is incredibly well done. The world that Anderson creates inside of this film is so interesting that you’ll certainly find yourself lost in all the tiny, little details as you watch. It engulfs you but, again, that’s Wes Anderson.
A couple of things though. The marketing surrounding The Fantastic Mr. Fox billed it as a superstar film with the voices of Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Owen Wilson, Jason Swartzman, et. al. In reality, the voices of the puppets could’ve been done by anyone, I think. The star power, in my opinion, didn’t make the film all that more interesting. It was neat, in a couple of cases, to hear the voices of actors and see which character they’d been given but aside from that, it could’ve been anyone doing those voices. At the same time, I would really love to see Anderson do a live action film with Clooney and Streep. What could possibly be better than that? Maybe if he cast Philip Seymour Hoffman and William H. Macy in supporting roles. You heard it here first.
My only other criticism of The Fanstastic Mr. Fox is that it was billed as a “family filmâ€â€”says so right on the DVD cover—and it was no such animal. Maybe if your family is older but if you’re going into it expecting a film that will appeal to younger audiences I don’t think you’ll find it here. While a film like Up can genuinely appeal to both young and old audiences, Mr. Fox fails to hit that mark for at least one reason: language. There is a lot of swearing in this film only, instead of using the real swear words, the characters say “cussâ€. How this is any different from saying “shit,†I don’t know. Kids are smart enough to pick up on this and realize what’s going on and I don’t think it’s really made any more appropriate because they aren’t actually saying a bad word. Any character that needs to say “cuss†every few sentences isn’t an appropriate character in a family flick. Is this a marketing thing? Probably, but it’s a thing nonetheless.
On the whole, The Fantastic Mr. Fox was a really good film. It’s quirky, unusual and highly entertaining like you’d expect from Wes Anderson. It’s interesting to look at, a real treat for the eyes, and it’s innovative. Given the medium he’s working on, Anderson has done a really good job. I’d be interesting in knowing what fans not familiar with Anderson’s other work think of this film but from my perspective, it’s a winner.
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