Based on the classic children’s book, Director Wes Anderson brings the tale of Fantastic Mr. Fox to life in this film of the same name. The story follows Mr. and Mrs. Fox (George Clooney & Meryl Streep), their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman), nephew Kristopherson, and other various woodland creatures as they go toe to toe with three villainous farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Mr. Fox made a promise years ago to Mrs. Fox to never sink back into his sneaky chicken-stealing ways again because he now has a family for care for. However, after discovering the nearby chicken farms and cider factory of Boggis, Bunce and Bean Mr. Fox can’t resist pulling his biggest heist ever and stealing chickens and cider from the three farmers. Mr. Fox successfully pulls off his heists, but with unforeseen consequences. Soon, the entire community of woodland creatures are being threatened by three irate farmers and it is up to Mr. Fox to come up with an ultimate plan to rescue his friends and family.
The overall story for Fantastic Mr. Fox is great. Wes Anderson stays very true to the original children’s book while adding just enough extra substance to the beginning and end of the film to make it feature-length. What Anderson adds flow seamlessly with the original story – none of it feels forced or out of place even a little. The film is charming and very much a “family movie” with literally no swearing (each time a character intends to swear he/she replaces that word with the word “cuss”) or inappropriate dialogue. The film does get a little dark a few times – after-all, the farmers are trying to kill all these woodland creatures – but things never turn bloody or overtly violent. Fantastic Mr. Fox does a great job maintaining upbeat characters and plot devices in a story that otherwise could have grown quite dark considering what the main story consists of.
Clooney, Streep and Schwartzman all head up a great cast of voice actors who lend their voices to the various characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox. Even Bill Murray plays a Badger Lawyer to Clooney’s Mr. Fox. It’s hard to say if it was intentional, but much like the stop-motion animation style of the film, the voice acting feels very retro. Nothing is over-acted or exclaimed too loudly, but at times the voices sound dangerously close to just being flat never quite crossing that line. Each actor gives a solid personality and plenty of humor to these characters while at the same time playing them very toned down, and as odd as it might sound: It worked beautifully.
It could probably go without saying that this is a beautiful film to watch, but it truly is a beautiful film to watch. The classic stop motion works perfectly and Wes Anderson made the right decision to not exploit modern technology to give the film an overly “too clean” feel. The character’s fur ripples from being moved while positioning the characters and there are small “jumps” and “glitches” (for lack of better terms) throughout the film – but these “imperfections” do nothing less than add to the charm of the artwork that’s presented on the screen.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is a film that you must watch the special features on. So many movies make it easy to just pass on the making-of featurette (“Okay, yeah, they stood in front of a green screen”) but this is very much a work of art and a labor of love caught in motion on camera. The pain-staking hours the animators spent positioning every little detail of every scene – even accounting for “scene settling” occurring depending on the amount of moisture that was in the air on a given day. The entire crew of animators, set/prop builders, character designers, etc. all deserve to have the amount of work they put into this film seen and appreciated.
Also included in the special features (depending on which version you purchase) are some more entertainment-oriented features like a feature explaining the rules of “Whack-Bat”. If you own a Blu-ray player, this version of the film is privy to even more special features and you can see the full list below.
Final Thoughts:
After watching Fantastic Mr. Fox I just thought to myself, “That was just great! What a fun and beautiful film to watch.” I honestly couldn’t be more happy to have experienced this film in a style that is so uncommon in modern film. The voice acting was solid, the story was flawless, and this film has a charm that honestly can’t be explained in a 1,000 word “review” – you have to watch it for yourself.
Special Features:
DVD:
- “From Script to Screen” featurette
- “Still Life (Puppet Animation)” featurette
- “A Beginner’s Guide to Whack-Bat”
Blu-ray:
- “A Beginner’s Guide to Whack-Bat”
- a 6-part “Making Mr. Fox Fantastic” documentary (“The Look Of Fantastic Mr. Fox”, “From Script To Screen”, “The Puppet Makers”, “Still Life (Puppet Animation)”, “The Cast”, “Bill And His Badger”)
- “Fantastic Mr. Fox: The World Of Roald Dahl” featurette
- Digital copy of the film
You can purchase Fantastic Mr. Fox at Amazon.com