Fantastic Mr Fox [DVD] [2009]

Description

The visually ravishing animated movie Fantastic Mr. Fox follows a fox, voiced by George Clooney and dressed in a natty brown corduroy suit, as he cheerfully and recklessly takes his thieving ways a little too far and brings down the wrath of some sour-faced poultry farmers on his family and friends. Based on a book by children's author Roald Dahl (who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach), the movie is the work of Wes Anderson (writer-director of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), who expanded and elaborated on the original story; the combination is inspired. Anderson's sensibility--his fondness for meticulous compositions, coordinated colors, and narrative filigree--can sometimes seem finicky and stiff in live-action movies, but it's exquisitely suited to the painstaking art of stop-motion animation. Every corner of the screen crackles with visual invention and whimsical humor. The top-notch vocal cast (which also features Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, and others) create vivid personalities that perfectly mesh with the movie's lush colors and luscious textures. Fantastic Mr. Fox is an off-beat gem, a giddy mix of adult emotional issues, wild animal behaviour, and childlike delight.--Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Stills from Fantastic Mr Fox (click for more from the stars)

George Clooney	Meryl Streep	Jason Schwartzman
Michael Gambon	Owen Wilson	Willem Dafoe
Wally Wolodarsky	Â	Â
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Reviews of Fantastic Mr Fox [DVD] [2009]:

Patronizing Mr Fox
Plot:

After narrowly escaping from a trap during a raid on a squab farm, Mr Fox (George Clooney) agrees to his pregnant wife's (Meryl Streep) demands to take up a less dangerous profession. Two years later and Mr Fox is now a newspaper columnist and the two have raised a teenage son called Ash (Jason Schwartzman). The Foxes make the decision to relocate to a better home. Against the advice of his lawyer, Clive Badger (Bill Murray), Mr Fox chooses a den situated at the base of a huge tree. From Badger, Mr Fox learns of that the land near his hole is occupied by the three farms of three notoriously wicked and wealthy farmers - the gluttonous chicken farmer Walter Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), the diminutive duck farmer Nathan Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and the skinny turkey farmer and cider brewer Franklin Bean (Michael Gambon). Hated and feared by the locals, they are all part of the attraction for the high risk-taking Mr Fox who decides to steal from them one by one. All goes to plan at the beginning, until the three farmers decide to declare war on Mr Fox and his family...

Review:

I hold my hand up to being a fan of stop-motion animation and yet not the greatest convert to the products of Aardman Animations. With this in mind, I looked forward to Fantastic Mr Fox being made by a production other than aforementioned creators of Wallace and Gromit. This fact may have sweetened me to the fact that an American production company, 20th Century Fox, were tackling what was essentially a British children's book and one that was hugely influential over my childhood. I was brought up a Roald Dahl fan and "Fantastic Mr Fox" was favourite personal favourite of his children's works. It had everything a child can enjoy in a fantasy-based story - witty animals, grisly villains and an innocent countryside setting. Unfortunately the charm and, dare I say, magic of the book does not transfer happily to Hollywood.

Enough has already been said in other reviews with the blatant cloning of Clooney's role in the "Ocean's Eleven" re-make franchise and grafting it onto Mr Fox. It's not a subtle observation; it is cynical playing to the US market, as are the other new elements added to the story. Rather than having a witty fox taking advantage of his surroundings, we now have an ambitious adrenaline junkie with the stereotypical grounding wife who tries making him acknowledge his responsibilities to his family. He also has a typical sullen teenage son in a totally unoriginal and irritating sub-plot, who finds himself being overshadowed by his cousin, Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson), who comes to stay with the family. The evolution of their relationship is pretty predictable.

Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach are fans of Dahl's. That much is believable. Sadly they don't seem to trust the source material enough and felt a need to bookend the original storyline with totally new material. Despite needlessly "updating" many of the elements of the story (read shoehorning in extra plot angles, characters and situations), the soundtrack of the film seems to be a pointless and out of place '60s rock 'n roll "homage" to the era in which Dahl wrote the original novel.

To make matters worse, this film is coated with a type of superficial sophistication aimed to make upper middleclass parents feel clever. It is this style that I think enamoured this film to the early critics. This is never better demonstrated in the contrived style of animation used by Henry Selick. Now Selick is certainly an animator worth looking out for. He has been behind several of my own favourite animated films and should be acknowledged at least much as Tim Burton for "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Going by his history, I am not a fan of collaborations with Anderson. "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" was a pretentious and thoroughly annoying piece of pseudo-art, which fell off the line of "off beat comedy" and into the realm of "thinks its clever when it isn't". In this respect, "Fantastic Mr Fox" is certainly a marked improvement.

This is not to say the film isn't completely irredeemable, although I am not surprised it didn't do well at the box office. Wilhelm Defoe's ridiculously large rat character, for example, adds a degree of confrontation and some extra peril that compliments Dahl's original story. It is not needed and very Hollywood in line with the faults I have outlined, but the scenes are well shot and Defoe is well cast in the role.

Fantastic Fox, Fantastic Film
Whimsical, delightful and absolutely hilarious, this film is a complete and utter joy. The cast is wonderful, particularly Clooney and Murray. It's obviously not 100% true to Dahl's book, but who cares? It's one of the most enjoyable films I've ever seen.

A great film for big kids
I remember seeing the trailer for this and thinking 'oh no!'

The reservations I had were with the animation style, casting and tone of the film, as presented in the trailer (as I remember it). However, these disappeared quickly when I sat down to watch the film with some friends.

I am a fan of Wes Anderson's films, and believe the rhythm, tone and idiosyncratic writing that have become somewhat of a trademark for him are actually most effectively utilised and executed here, in a children's movie. Although, I'd argue it's not really a child's film, more so an indulgence of the child-like side of Anderson, his cast and the audience, should they wish their inner child to be so indulged.

As many reviewers have detailed, this film adaptation is not particularly faithful to the source material. True enough. The film takes Dahl's work as a starting point and then runs with Anderson's imagination. The Fox family dynamic is as wonderfully realised as that of the Tenenbaums, if not more so. The fact that the film is animated perhaps gave the director even greater license to be, well, silly. The same could be said for the film's sweetness at times and the absurd level of violence that normally only cartoons can display for younger audiences (don't worry parents, it's never gruesome).

Fantastic Mr Fox made me laugh, a really hearty and full laugh, and I enjoyed it immensely. Dahl's book likewise.

I ask: So what if the film devieates from the source material and does not bring to the screen a word for word, page by page retelling of the book? Adaptations, by their nature, must adapt the original material to suit the medium they are moving to. Furthermore, it is nigh on impossible to satisfy each and every fan of a book. We will all have our ideas of how the characters should sound, how they should move and so on to the minutae of characterization. So, can it ever be correct to discount out of hand the interpretation of another, and their subsequent adaptation? Obviously I'm not going to lie and say I'm fine and comfortable with every film adaptation of a book I've loved on this basis (see most film versions of Alan Moore's work), but I do think some Dahl fans, particularly the older ones, could do with giving this film a chance on it's own merits. Let the original book be what it is, a fantastic piece of children's literature. Then, let this film be what it is, a charming, funny, quirky, eccentric, inventive, colourful and altogether different children's(ish) film.

Interesting, but ultimately disappointing
I am an avid fan of interesting and innovative animation, and when I heard there was to be a Fantastic Mr. Fox film made using stop motion I couldn't help but be excited. After seeing the trailers, however, my heart sank. The story seemed so different, it was so americanized and the animation seemed poor rather than deliberately juvenile. It was with trepidation that I watched this film, and in some ways my fears were realized.
As you probably have read, the story is quite different from the book. Like many people I grew up with Fantastic Mr Fox and it was my absolute favourite Dahl story. The bones of the story are there, but Anderson has placed his own stamp on it - in places the script seems more like an analysis of the modern american family rather than a Dahl adaptation. While this is, at times, fascinating and works well (the relationship between Ash and Kristofferson particularly) I feel that it conflicts too much with the original material. While I am a strong believer in keeping film adaptations seperate to the original books (for example, Howl's Moving Castle and How To Train Your Dragon are great films in their own right) in cases where the new story is worse than the old or over complicated, I find it impossible not to make comparisons and complain. There was plenty in the original book that would entertain onscreen and while the Dahl family approve, in my opinion there was no need to change it other than to satisfy Anderson. It is enjoyable, yes, in places great - but it could have been so much better. It could have been fantastic.
I thought that the fact that the main characters were american would annoy me a lot more than it did - what annoyed me more that the heroes were american while the villains were english. Hmm. In terms of where it is set, I don't believe Dahl specifies: much like Willy Wonka, it is left unspecific so children of any nationality can feel like it is their story, set in their town. However, in some places FMF goes so very american it is jarring - banjo scene anyone? - and I am so fed up with the american hero vs english baddie scenario. It may not be intentional but some times it is just offensive, regardless of how many times people say brits are better at playing baddies.
What I was pleasantly suprised about was the animation. At first the movements are rather jarring, and the postures of the animals are very strange - I'm not quite sure that the way they stand and walk quite work, they all look a bit too human. The way they smile as well (Mr Fox's nervous smiles come to mind) are also scary rather than humorous. However, it is unique, and like all Anderson films, very quirky. The way the fur moves is particularly lovely, and it makes a change to see something blatantly hand made on the big screen rather than well rounded and smooth (like new Wallace and Gromit films compared to old ones - they were much more interesting with the visible fingerprints!)
In conclusion, it is worth a look. You will almost certainly be entertained, more than likely wishing it was more like the book, but hopefully inspired.

Surreal and creepy.
I know I'm going against popular opinion here but I just didn't like this. The whole film was incredibly surreal and the animation seriously creeped me out, particularly the human puppets. Though I have read The Fantastic Mr Fox it was between 15 and 20 years ago and I struggled to recognise any of the plot. Everything seemed to move along at a slightly disjointed pace and after only 12 minutes I'd have sworn I'd been watching it for half an hour.

It has a very impressive voice cast but I had trouble putting names to who I was hearing, so the credits resulted in a lot of "Oh yeah"s from me, and everyone seemed to be speaking in a tone that sounded as if they were reading the story to children rather than actually voicing the characters, this added a prentious top note to the whole film.

The music was superb through out but it actually only made things look a little weirder. Watching this was almost like having a strange and confusing dream. It took two attempts for me to watch it all as I origionally gave up on it after less than an hour, but I'd paid to rent it so I decided to go back and watch the rest later on.

I'm afraid this isn't one I'm going to recommend, but I will say this: It really did feel very Roald Dahl.

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