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Fantastic Mr. Fox Movie Review

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 animated comedy film directed by Wes Anderson and starring George Clooney. It’s a solid, but expectedly annoying flick.

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“He’s rabid. With rabies“

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Full disclosure, I strongly dislike the work of Wes Anderson. In fact, I have never seen a live-action film of his that I ended up liking. The same goes for animation as I really hated ‘Isle of Dogs’. However, this one is an exception. Again, it’s not a great movie by any stretch of imagination, but it’s tolerable and solid enough as the only Anderson movie I liked so far.

Based on the Roald Dahl novel of the same name, it follows a fox who steals food from some very dangerous farmers. Unlike most Dahl adaptations, this one, though very charming, is too adult and mature in approach, lacking the childlike appeal that others clearly have. That bothered me as the movie is never as fun as it could have been, but it’s amusing in humor, even if it is decidedly uneven in its jokes. But the sophistication to its dialogue was respectable.

Mr. Fox is a great protagonist, a lot of fun and quite suave. Clive Badger is also great and the two are very funny together. Rat is highly memorable as well as the humans. The women, though, are very mediocre, and the kid foxes really were a waste of the film’s screen time as the subplots regarding them are dull and stalling.

The animation in Fantastic Mr. Fox is truly outstanding. Everything here looks miraculously done in terms of detail, sets, costumes and so on. This is one great example of how potent and utterly charming stop-motion animation can truly be. The movie is gorgeous to behold with a lot of memorable storybook quality imagery.

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The score is also lovely and quite quaint as is the film’s pacing, rustic charm and stellar dialogue. What bothered me is the action, which is far from great, the third act, which is quite disappointing, and the voice acting, which itself is the weakest aspect of this movie. They basically took all these famous stars to voice these characters, and they simply were a terrible fit. For instance, I could hear Clooney throughout and not Mr. Fox, and that really bothered me.

Fantastic Mr. Fox features atrocious casting. It was so bad that you could only hear the stars acting out these animals throughout. It’s also intended just for adults and is not as fun or as funny as it could have been. Still, the dialogue is stellar, the stop-motion animation is absolutely gorgeous and the movie is so meticulously crafted and charming in its every sequence. Thus, it’s a rare Wes Anderson movie that is tolerable to me.

My Rating – 3.5

You can get this Wes Anderson movie on Amazon.