Fantastic Mr. Fox Review

Tuesday, August 11, 2015



Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop motion animation comedy film made in 2009 based on the book of the same name by Roald Dahl the author of such things as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and The Witches among other classics. Great author of childrens books I loved them when I was a kid and they make great family films. This one can be seen as a kids movie but this more is more of an adult movie in my opinion. It was directed by Wes Anderson and I read that it was his first animated film and first film adaptation. It stars George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, and Owen Wilson. 

So I think this film is very avant garde indeed. The animation with the humanoid bodies and the animal heads has been done before but the art is very "indie culture" and I think that kind of urban millenial artist type aesthetic is protrayed excellently in this film. Its intellectual its very adult in its humour like you see alot in 90s media but relatively safe for kids to watch. It pokes fun at things like having family members staying at your place and the kid gets jealous, midlife crisis where you buy extravagant things to make your ego satisfied the realty business stuff like that. Things adults willl understand that kids wont but kids can still find things they like about the film too.

The plot of the story is about the self proclaimed "Fantastic Mr. Fox" who was a thieving fox played by George Clooney who you may know from the oceans 11, 12, 13 etc thief movies. He has a girlfriend whos eggo goes preggo so she tells him to settle down and stop being a thief and so he starts a family and everything then moves to a new place and gets the urge to start stealing again and the whole thing goes by the actions of his last thief job and the consequences therein. All the characters are lovable they all have something unique and interesting about their character. The voice acting may seem a bit strange at first but the more you watch it the more you can see it was planned that was and is actually very good and very smart in how the actors read their lines in conjuction with the animation it all melds for a soup of lovable dorky characters. They took the original story but they definitely made it new and creative and its own kind of thing not like most other film adaptations. You will either love the creativity and artistic drive in this films making or you'll think its like an indie comedy disguised as fantastic mr fox and won't like it so much. This is one of those movies that creates its own slang terms and in my experience any media like that is always going to be cherished by certain dorky people who like to use dry humour to make their friends laugh in a dorky way and this gives you fuel to do that. I won't spoil it for you you'll just have to see. 

All around this movie is unique and artistic and a joy to behold. Yoou have to pay attention to get the little jokes though you can't half watch it half check your smartphone or you'll miss all the little jokes that make this a gem of a film. The animation is interesting you can tell its cheap stop motion right away but they made that a quality about the film to be enjoyed. The choppy parts of the animation they make use of that in a creative way which is very avant garde you don't really see creative uses of a smaller budget stop animation film like this movie has. 

And thats my review I think everyone should see this movie at least once and if you liked it you should go out and buy it because its a fun artistic movie with lots of quality humour and there is some pretty good music in it too.

Youtube Trailer
Youtube Movie
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
Amazon Listing

0 comments:

Post a Comment