George Clooney is a stone cold fox

Wes Anderson and friends bring Roald Dahl tale to life

By Guruchathram Ledchumanan

Fantastic Mr. Fox Starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe and Owen Wilson Twentieth Century Fox 87 mins Rated PG

Some directors blindside you with the certainty of their vision. It’s like having a fight with your girlfriend that you can’t win. Whether or not you believe in their world, there is no question that you are merely a spectator in it. Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman and yes, Wes Anderson is like that too.

I did not like his earlier feature Rushmore, but fell head over hells in love with the Darjeeling Limited. If you enjoyed the eccentricity, humour and sheer bright colours used in the production design, you will gobble up Fantastic Mr. Fox as if you were a starving hound looking for a chicken’s neck to bite into.

This film is animated, but not in the modern CGI way or even hand-drawn old Disney tradition of Snow White And The Seven Dwarves. It is done in what is probably the oldest animation style there is, stop-motion animation. That is the technique used to bring the original King Kong to life in the classic 1933 black and white film.

In some animated films, the animals remind you of humans, but in Mr. Fox, they are so much better than people could possibly hope to be. The art direction and production design of the film make it look like the pictures of a children’s book came to life and you’re walking inside the story of the pages. The camera slides left to right many times giving it an old-school Mario kind of vibe. It’s uncanny how soon you forget that you’re looking at the faces of animals because they will look human as soon as the story starts. In the film we enter the UnCanny Valley, a No Man’s Land that separates the humans from the animals.

I even loved the typical Wes Anderson yellow font used in the opening credit poem that sets up the story as only Roald Dahl can. “Boggis and Bunce and Bean / One fat, one short, one lean / These horrible crooks, so different in looks / Were nonetheless equally mean.”

These animals being Dahl creatures aren’t your garden variety fuzzy cuddly creatures. Mr. Fox (Clooney) is a chicken thief who, just like his character in the Ocean’s movies, gives up his life of crime because of a promise made to the foxy lady he loves (Streep).

The animals engage in an all-out war with the human farmers and this includes so much tunneling I expected Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and the rest of the cast from The Great Escape to show up in motorcycles and sidecars. But unlike McQueen and gang that were tunneling to get out, these bandits and Badger (Murray) are tunneling to get in the farmer’s warehouse of goodies.

The always great Willem Dafoe is outstanding in his role as a security guard rat with a Southern American accent. I can’t think of anyone else who has the range to play Jesus Christ, the Green Goblin, and a security rat with equal conviction. Michael Gambon is equally amazing as one of the farmers who quite possibly could be one of the scariest villains in stop motion history next to Callibos, the cursed demon from Clash Of The Titans.

As with all Anderson films, the soundtrack is awesome with songs from everyone from the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and even a cameo and song from Jarvis Cocker of Britpop group Pulp.

I would say that this version of the Dahl story stayed closer to his spirit than the Tim Burton version of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory did. But just like Wily Wonka, it seems like the characters in Dahl stories know more than they’re letting on. It felt like I wasn’t watching a movie as much as watching real characters live out their daily lives. It’s a great film for children and for adults who haven’t lost their sense of wonder or are perhaps seeking to regain it.

3.5 out of 4 stars

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