Wes Anderson’s latest film, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” applies his quirky and charming style to stop-motion animation, creating an interesting sort of kid’s movie that will likely mean much more to adults. The animation is beautiful if you don’t mind the sometimes blocky movement of the characters, and as usual, Anderson has used a sort of idiosyncratic soundtrack mostly made up out of Burl Ives and The Beach Boys music this time around. The bad characters are regular bad guy archetypes, but the good guys all have these under-stated personalities and relationships that may go over kids’ heads a little bit. Still, the movie can please literally any audience due to this dual nature, serving both kids and adults equally.
Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is an ex-chicken stealer who’s moved into a tree outside the farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, three rather threatening humans who will later do their best to kill Mr. Fox and his acquaintances. When Mr. Fox gets antsy and returns to his food-stealing ways, the three farmers retaliate and destroy the Fox home, forcing the animals to do their very best to survive underground. In the meantime, Mr. Fox’s son (Jason Schwartzman) is feeling inferior to his cousin Kristofferson, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) is attempting to stop Mr. Fox from relapsing into criminal activity, and Badger (Bill Murray) is just trying to do his best to get by.
The stop-motion animation is almost jarring after seeing so many computer animated films in recent years, but it just adds to the charm. Everything looks great, and the attention to art direction becomes obvious immediately. The only thing that may put viewers off is the sometimes blocky animation the characters exhibit, though it can be seen as intentional.
The movie is infinitely charming and smart, even for an adult movie. Clearly, Wes Anderson fans shouldn’t be disappointed, and this film only expands the audience to kids as well. The film’s humor is spot-on matched to everything else as well, not too intrusive. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Up” are neck-and-neck in an exceptional field of animated films in 2009, and both are well worth your time and money.
