screening

Web-Exclusive Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Alternative Press - Tim Karan on 11/12/09 @ 5:31 PM - altpress.com

ANIMATION
FANTASTIC MR. FOX (Fox Searchlight)
STARS > George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker
DIRECTOR > Wes Anderson
RATING > 3.5/5
OPENS > NOV 13 (limited), NOV 25 (nationwide)

Few directors working today have a more instantly recognizable style than Wes Anderson. His films are larded with genteel sensibilities, parochial schoolboy-isms and patriarchal failings; they express a profound aversion to vulgarity; are expertly peppered with highly sentimental soundtrack offerings and are generally populated by at least two or three of his go-to actors--most notably Bill Murray (who returns here in his fifth consecutive Anderson film), Owen Wilson (also present) and Jason Schwartzman (who makes his third credited appearance in the director's canon). After 2007's lackluster The Darjeeling Limited, it seems that Anderson realized he needed to drop at least some his well-worn proclivities and bring in some new ideas and fresh faces. Enter George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Willem Dafoe, three Oscar-baiting mega-stars, who give voice to the director's first-ever departure from his established form, Fantastic Mr. Fox. Not only is Anderson's latest film based on a story written by someone other than himself; it also abandons live action for the insanely grueling process of stop-motion animation. But make no mistake: It's a Wes Anderson film through and through.

Based on the 1970 children's book by Roald Dahl, the British author and former Royal Air Force pilot and intelligence agent whose work has been adapted to film many times before (1971's Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton's 2005 remake Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and 1996's James And The Giant Peach) Mr. Fox follows a family of foxes and their mammalian neighbors as they struggle against the elaborate extermination efforts of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, a trio of local farmers whom Mr. Fox has been stealing livestock and apple cider from. The film's bizarrely unblinking creatures are a triumph of the stop-animation craft, each more crookedly toothed and wildly furry than the next. Expertly voiced in almost every instance--especially Clooney as Mr. Fox, Dafoe as a cider-swilling, switchblade-wielding rat and Irish actor Michael Gambon (who plays Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films) as the shotgun-happy cider-brewer Franklin Bean--they're all eminently likeable, even the designated bad guys. But Anderson's real triumph is that of wholly preserving his voice and filmmaking style through a story he didn't write and a film inhabited by anthropomorphized puppets. All the hallmarks of his previous films are present: the long tracking shots, the serio-comic dialogue, the paternal blunders, the circumvention of obscenity (all the characters use the word "cuss" in place of actual cuss words), the nostalgic soundtrack. It's a small miracle, really, that Anderson managed to change almost everything without really changing anything at all. --J. Bennett

Comments

Post a Comment

No comments yet!



  |     |   Share   |   Print this article