*** Official THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Director Wes Anderson retells Roald Dahl's children's classic "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" with the use a stop-motion animation, and some fine voice-acting by a solid cast (featuring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman).

The film uses the animals on the country side to examine if they can change their very nature when confronted with life-challenging situations. Mr. Fox and Felicity, both foxes who escape from harm after raiding a chicken farm, well, because that's what foxes do, they pledge to find better ways to "make a living" so to speak, if they survive, and later they have a son, Ash, who's a bit different than the usual fox, and has to deal with his uber-fox cousin Kristofferson's presence as the uncle with double pneumonia sends Kristofferson to stay with them. As time goes on Mr. Fox finds himself succumbing to the lure of raiding chicken farm with help, and then the chicken farmers strike back, making the life hard for all the nearby animals, and the hunt ensues.

It's been said that Wes Anderson's direction of this film is somewhat like "The Life Aquatic" in spots, only with live humans in that film, and I can see the similarities, but I didn't much care for "The Life Aquatic", but the use of stop-motion animation in this film is simply charming, and cussing fantastic! There might be a few too many close up shots of tears running from the eyes of the animal characters, but it helps us relate to their plight, and their fight for survival in light of the humans employing every strategic and tactical advantage at their disposal.

This is a film that can be enjoyed on the children's level and the adult's level, it just cussing works.

I give the film 3 stars, or a grade of B.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Agree. I give it a whistle and two clicks.

 

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!

If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an [COLOR= #44708c]Official Discussion Thread[/COLOR].




Crawdaddy

 

[Hanson]

After seeing so many movies in my lifetime, it is easy to start seeing the same tropes, plots, and beats being recycled ad infinitum. Sometimes the execution makes up for the predictability. But oftentimes, the predictability is the movie's undoing, with the filmmakers too afraid to stray too far from the formula because, let's face it, formula sells. But what may work for the greater audience falls flat for me. Which is why a film like The Fantastic Mr. Fox is such an unpredictable delight. For one thing, it doesn't look like anything else -- it has an organic realness that CGI fails to capture. And for some reason, I was particularly taken with the way the stop animation fur never stayed still -- the added level of dynamism was oddly riveting. The moment that really hooked me was during breakfast in the Fox home -- as Mr. Fox is reading the same newspaper he writes a column for, Mrs. Fox sets down a plate of French toast in front of him that he devours in a rapacious flurry like a cartoon Tasmanian Devil. It was so unexpected and yet so completely appropriate that it set up the internal logic right away. And as much as I loved the rhythms of the dialog and the story (as well as the terrifically understated voice acting), there were so many little, unpredictable touches that made me appreciate how Wes Anderson (not a director I particularly care for) broke out of the set "standards" for children's animation -- that the Foxes bit through the necks of the chickens to kill them, that the villains of the piece smoked and used firearms, and that the characters conversed about legal and real estate issues that probably went over younger heads (but was infinitely more interesting than, say, a galactic trade dispute would be for adults). The subversive nature of the Fox character was reflected in much of the movie, and having never read the book (itself from a rather subversive "children's author"), the story was an unpredictable treat. I had assembled a top ten list for 2009 before seeing this movie, and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to swap out Ponyo for The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

 

[Hans M.]

This was definitely one of the best movie I saw last year. I have my review here:
http://indieethos.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/fantastic-mr-fox-review/
Also, I just recently found out Film Comment used my "rave" for it in their reader's poll on-line (you can find it though the link in here):
http://indieethos.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/my-opinion-on-2009-kids-films-in-film-comment/