Fantastic Mr. Fox

A-

Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," the director's first forray into animation, is a fairly resounding success, a movie that appeals to a wider audience than any of Anderson's earlier films but nevertheless remains sophisticated and intelligent in a way that most animated films are not.

Based on the Roald Dahl classic, Anderson's film follows the exploits of the smooth talking and dashing Mr. Fox who abandons his trade as chicken thief when his wife Felicity tells him she's pregnant. We rejoin the couple several years later as they relocate from their foxhole to more lavish housing in the trunk a tree. Mr. Fox, who is now working as a newspaper columnist, grows restless however, and soon hatches a plan with his oppossum friend Kylie to rob the areas three biggest businessmen. When the plan is found out, however, the whole animal community is thrust into danger as the farmers ruthlessly seek revenge on Mr. Fox.

The success of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" comes as little surrpise seeing as how Anderson's aesthetic is known to often veer off towards the cartoonish. Indeed, "Mr. Fox" is inbued with the same energy and color Anderson's films are known for, replete with the deadpan dialogue and sudden bursts of classic rock to liven up the mood. It also features the familiar melancholic undertow that runs through Anderson's work, but he doesn't overdo it in "Mr. Fox" and lets the film play out as a largely joyous and irreverent affair. This is not to say that it doesn't have its more serious moments (as serious as you can get in an animated film about a debonair fox, I suppose) but only that Anderson doesn't seem to have been as preoccupied with trying to beef up "Fantastic Mr. Fox" with added layers of moral or psychological depth like he has in past efforts which, let's be honest, has not always been as effective as he probably wished. Anderson's willingness to ditch the pretensions and just let "Mr. Fox" be as fun as it can be is a credit to the director's restraint (something he hasn't always been known for) and really highlights Anderson's strengths as a filmmaker. The stop-motion animation is wonderfully unique, giving Anderson's film a sort of old fashioned sheen that feels familiar yet is still technically impressive, even to viewer unfamiliar with the ins and outs of animation such as myself.