Fantastic Mr. Fox reviews

Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

Owen Gleiberman loves it.

GRADE: A

Who'd have guessed it? Wes Anderson, creator of the rascally stop-motion fable Fantastic Mr. Fox, turns out to be born to make animated films. I say that with a bit of mischief, because I'm not a big fan of Anderson's work (Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limited). What I now understand, though, is that in essence, he's always been making cartoons; he just confused the issue by putting real live actors in them. Before, he twisted reality into a permanent ironic pose. Now, in the infectiously primitive talking-animal world of Fantastic Mr. Fox, he's become an ironic realist.

Freely adapting Roald Dahl's 1970 children's book, Anderson creates an endearingly tactile fairy-tale thrift-shop universe, with quaintly painted backdrops, cotton balls for smoke, and a family of foxes who move in such deliberate fashion that, up close, you can see the hairs on their faces bristle and jerk. Yet Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney), Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), and their son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), inhabit a world that's disarmingly, well, lifelike. There are jokes about flipped real estate (they move from a hole to a tree — i.e., an upscale condo), plus a very unchildlike soundtrack powered by the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones. As a hero, Mr. Fox has the arch self-possession to insist to his wife that he poaches poultry ''because I'm a wild animal.'' Against her wishes, he plots to rip off a trio of evil farmers, and the film turns into a modly surreal, underground-burrowing heist yarn, with Clooney as self-mockingly sympathetic as he is in the Ocean's films. With its virtuoso tomfoolery, Fantastic Mr. Fox is like a homegrown Wallace and Gromit caper. To Wes Anderson: More, please!
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Post by Sabin »

Slant's Nick Schager likes it.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX - ***/****

As with Spike Jonze and Where the Wild Things Are, Wes Anderson channels his idiosyncratic adult sensibilities through youthful genre trappings with the stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox. Yet even in light of this similarity, Anderson's effort is the slightly more childlike of the two, despite the fact that it is, for all intents and purposes, exactly what one might imagine a stop-motion Anderson film to be: multitudes of quirky characters, immaculately arranged compositions and camera pans, soundtrack outbursts of classic rock, and a blend of tender humanism and melancholic existentialism.

With his expanded-upon adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1970 book, Anderson uses technology previously employed in The Life Aquatic to make an animalistic variation on The Royal Tenenbaums, with which this story shares a sly, scheming paterfamilias in Mr. Fox (George Clooney), an exasperated wife in Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), a mopey oddball son prone to fits of spitting anger in Ash (Jason Schwartzman), and a variety of droll supporting players. Per Anderson convention, all of these figures wrestle with the question of their inherent nature (here: civilized or bestial?), the looming threat of mortality, and the vitality of family during their adventure, which is sparked by Mr. Fox's inability to embrace his cozy but mundane domestic existence and newspaper-columnist career, and ensuing decision to break his years-earlier promise to Mrs. Fox by again poaching chickens.

Regardless of his grownup themes, Anderson is clearly in a more playful, rambunctious mode than in his prior The Darjeeling Limited, a spirit exemplified by his bright, electric animation. Fantastic Mr. Fox beautifully melds stop-motion's slightly unreal aesthetics (strange movements, stilted expressions, rough tangibility) with his own fetishistically detailed style, a marriage that's buoyed by a host of small flourishes—such as the eyes of Mr. Fox's possum pal Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky) going swirly-lined crazy, or an inspired campfire musical aside—that prove comically self-conscious. Anderson, however, mostly calls attention to his visual approach simply by using it for trademark symmetrical compositions, interior environments decorated with all manner of knick-knacks, and humorous cutaways to character-defining snapshots, most expertly during Mr. Fox's description of his chosen trio of arch enemies, evil farmers Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and Bean (Michael Gambon), a cabal whose residences loom directly outside Mr. Fox's newly purchased Elm tree home. Mr. Fox's war with these three forms the film's narrative backbone. As always, though, Anderson's swift pacing and deft ability to outline personalities and emotions in quick, sharp strokes allows him time for other concerns, most amusingly Ash's frustration at being labeled "different" (his preferred outfit: a girly sweater and cape), his jealousy of celebrated athlete cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), and his desire for fatherly acceptance.

If Fantastic Mr. Fox is consistently jovial, it can also at times feel trivial. While Mr. Fox's third-act impromptu funeral for a fallen enemy imbues the material with a philosophical bent, and solemn pathos periodically creeps into the story's nooks and crannies, Anderson subsumes such heady topics in favor of lighthearted regurgitation. With his latest, the director doesn't take a step in any direction so much as simply re-mine his oeuvre, a situation that isn't quite disappointing but does impart a lingering impression of unadventurous superficiality.

Given its canny beauty and quick wit, Fantastic Mr. Fox seems primed to also burrow into issues of self, uniqueness, and community as dexterously as Mr. Fox and his clan dig holes, yet Anderson prizes the funny over the profound to an extent that keeps the proceedings a tad too light and jovial to register as anything more than a lightweight aside to his more acute, earnest work. Such a critique, however, should only be taken in relative terms, since on the whole, Anderson's first foray into animation amuses at a consistent enough clip, and with an impressively deft balance between mature and immature humor, to successfully charm, if not quite make ones eyes go swirly-lined delirious with joy.
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Post by Franz Ferdinand »

The reviews seem to be split down the Atlantic - American reviewers seem to love it, British reviewers loathe the Americanization of it.

All I know is I can't wait!
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HR

Fantastic Mr. Fox -- Film Review
By Sheri Linden, October 14, 2009 10:00 ET

Bottom Line: Although sometimes too sly for its own good, this great-looking carnivorous caper brings Wes Anderson's whimsical melancholy to a kids' classic.

The title character of Wes Anderson's first animated feature is a cad, a rogue, an incorrigible thief. He's also a family man, struggling to do right on the marital and child-rearing fronts. Voiced by George Clooney, he's no small part Danny Ocean. If "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is an eye-popping, kid-friendly adaptation of Roald Dahl's attitude-packed 1970 book, it's at least as much a film for adults.

The screenplay sometimes overdoes the winking asides, and the film doesn't so much flow as jump from one set piece to the next. But with animation director Mark Gustafson, DP Tristan Oliver and production designer Nelson Lowry, Anderson has created a world as stylized and inventive as anything he's done. From the fox-red glow of a morning idyll to the noirish gutter scene where one character meets his end to the icy fluorescent glare of the film's closing scene -- happy but not without compromise -- "Fox" is a visual delight.

The movie, which premiered at the London fest and bows Nov. 13 in New York and Los Angeles before going wide for Thanksgiving, is not likely to dethrone Disney's "Princess" in the year-end animation tallies, but word-of-mouth should make it a cunning alt-family-fare contender.

The word "texture" gets tossed around a lot, but this stop-motion escapade is alive with it, beginning with the puppets by U.K. outfit MacKinnon and Saunders. They're furry animals who walk upright and dress with style but who are, we're reminded on more than one occasion, wild creatures. They kill to survive, and when they eat, they devour. Miss Manners would not approve.

Among Anderson's films, "Fox" hews closest to "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" in its handmade aesthetic, though its vision is far less, well, fantastic. That strange adventure, like this film, was co-written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Their "Fox" script softens the dysfunctional edges without sugarcoating the director's ideas about the nuclear family and conflicted father figures. There's plenty of angst, of the grown-up and teen varieties, to go around. Just listen to the way Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), the antihero's former partner in crime, says "I'm pregnant."

Twelve "fox years" after she makes that ambivalent statement, Fox has forsaken larceny and works as a newspaperman who suspects that no one reads his column. (Who says kids' films can't reflect contemporary reality?) Wanting to move on up as a homeowner, he buys a tree he can't quite afford. Soon he's donning the raffish corduroy getup from his bad old days and enlisting the help of a spacey opossum (Wally Wolodarsky) in "one last" big job. His targets are the three nastiest farmers for miles around: Boggis, Bunce and the ultramean Bean (Michael Gambon).

As deliciously dry as Gambon's villain is, the bad guys are of less concern to Anderson than they were to Dahl. What drives this caper is the Fox home front. Diminutive son Ash (Jason Schwartzman, in a fine adolescent sulk) can't measure up to his debonair dad or his perfect cousin Kristofferson (an equally effective Eric Anderson, brother of the director). A terrific detail is the way Ash twitches his ear when his feelings are hurt. The cousins' rivalry is comic and touching, and Anderson administers a familiar Hollywood lesson -- the beauty of being different -- without the usual schmaltz.

Star voice casts can be more distracting than helpful, but Clooney and Streep bring shadings to their characters that deepen the story. The supporting cast, effective if not indelible, includes Anderson regulars Bill Murray as attorney Badger, Willem Dafoe as security guard Rat and Owen Wilson as Ash's discouragement-dispensing coach.

Boomer faves by the Beach Boys and the Stones punctuate the soundtrack, with Alexandre Desplat delivering an elegant gallop of a score. Upping the hipster quotient in lovely, non-ironic fashion is Jarvis Cocker's bit as farmhand Petey, a banjo-playing Jarvis Cocker look-alike who strums a rootsy ditty by campfire.
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Post by Sabin »

Technically, this hits all the marks. Lighting, strong on indigos and oranges, is lovely and the French-influenced score is a delight.

They don't mention that the composer is Alexandre Desplat, one of the most exciting new composers to arrive in the last decade. This is his first film away from Mark Mothersbaugh and I'm as fascinated to see how Desplat matches up to Wes' sensibility as stop-motion animation does.

Obviously, I can't wait for this film.

Wes Anderson needs to knock one out of the park. It took me a couple viewings but I kind of love The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited, while hampered by a self-absorbed third act, is very, very charming for an hour or so. I guess that means that aside from Armond White, I'm still Wes Anderson's biggest fan. When did *that* start, by the way? One would imagine that Armond's loathing for anything with spitting range of all-that-is-hipster would incur his incoherent wrath.




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Post by Sonic Youth »

Oops. Mister Tee was first.



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Post by Sonic Youth »

Interstingly, both the Variety and Screendaily reviews emphasize its old-fashioned-ness.

I was a Roald Dahl fan as a kid, but Mr. Fox is an interesting book to adapt. It's very political and it builds to a climax which is then denied. Will kids take to this?

Sorry, Sabin, that the original thread title wasn't preserved.




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Screen Daily

Fantastic Mr Fox
14 October, 2009 | By Fionnuala Halligan

Dir: Wes Anderson. US, 2009. 87 mins.

The spirit of Roald Dahl is writ large across this distinctively dry Wes Anderson adaptation of Fantastic Mr Fox. The result is a laconic, terribly old-fashioned but fantastically fun stop-motion animation which is an instant high-water benchmark for Dahl fans.

Anderson’s wit proves to be a fizzing match with Dahl’s subversive spirit, but George Clooney, as the titular Foxy, and Meryl Streep as his wife are a vital part of the fusion as well. Enchanted adults, particularly those who warmed to Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums or Rushmore, will certainly deliver the director/co-screenwriter (with The Squid and the Whale’s Noah Baumbach) his biggest hit to date.

Childrens’ reactions are less secure and this could work better at the younger and older ends of the spectrum. The jerky stop-motion is challenging eye candy for the mainstream Disney crowd, but Anderson’s inspired nuttiness should find eager young takers.

Results in the UK, where Dahl is required reading, look to be particularly strong, and other European markets should also react warmly, with Asia a slightly more challenging prospect.

If Anderson has a spiritual affinity with Dahl’s written word, he also has a vision of Foxy’s world which recalls Quentin Blake’s illustrations but goes much further; it’s this sustained creativeness that sets Fox apart in a similar way to Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit. As for the puppets, Fox himself is indeed fantastic; long and lean, standing on tiptoes in his cut-off-trouser-suit and slightly threadbare, he could come from a toy cupboard yet is the perfect incarnation of the Vulpes vulpes who called everyone “darling” in Dahl’s book. When he bares his teeth or shreds his toast it’s worth the price of admission alone.

Anderson and Baumbach have nicely punched out Dahl’s slim tome, effectively completing the adaptation in 50 minutes and moving on to new ground.

They’ve given Fox, first seen listening to The Ballad of Davy Crockett in a set which could easily have come from a 1970s BBC kids TV show, a backstory and taken away three of his Small Foxes: he has sworn off chickens as the movie starts, working instead as a columnist for the local newspaper. But Fox is a wild animal at heart, and soon goes back to his old tricks (“one last big job” which becomes “a triple-header”). His beady – literally – eyes are fixed on the produce of three local farmers: Boggis, Bunce, and chief villain Bean (Michael Gambon).

Fox may have lost three of his litter, but he has one very interesting and “different” son left – Ash (Jason Schwartzman), who wants to be an athlete but is evidently inferior in that respect to his yoga-practicing, kung fu-expert cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). Fox also has a sidekick in opossum Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), while Rat’s (Willem Dafoe) role has been expanded and Badger (Murray) is given more to do.

Overall, though, Anderson has crammed his film with memorable asides, from the rabid beagles, Fox’s trademark whistle and click, a little bit of Latin, to a crazy game called Whack Bat which has more rules than quidditch, dancing interludes, a fight sequence which is delightfully Dali-meets-Hitchcock and the director’s signature srolling minstrel, this time called Petey and played by Jarvis Cocker.

Fox’s dry humour (“my suicide plan is cancelled”) doesn’t completely gloss over Dahl’s darkness, either, and the director is at pains to point out these are potentially dangerous animals – in a memorable moment for a children’s animation, Mrs Fox leaves her imprint on her husband’s face.

Technically, this hits all the marks. Lighting, strong on indigos and oranges, is lovely and the French-influenced score is a delight.
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Fantastic Mr. Fox
(Animated)
By TODD MCCARTHY

So old-fashioned as to look like something brand new, the stop-motion-animated "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is as recognizably a Wes Anderson film as any of his previous features. Roald Dahl's 1970 children's favorite about a fox clan and friends eluding human predators has been transformed into a tale of odd family dynamics stemming from the behavior of an eccentric patriarch. The film's style, paradoxically both precious and rough-hewn, positions this as the season's defiantly anti-CGI toon, and its retro charms will likely appeal more strongly to grown-ups than to moppets; it's a picture for people who would rather drive a 1953 Jaguar XK 120 than a new one. B.O. for this Fox release will no doubt be closer to that of "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" than of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs."

The second talking-fox picture of the year, after Lars von Trier's "Antichrist," this one features not genital mutilation, but a leading character who gets his tail shot off. It also boasts some of the most gorgeous autumnal color schemes devised by someone other than Mother Nature herself, animal puppets festooned with actual fur, and a sensibility more indie than mainstream.

It's a curious coincidence that Anderson and Spike Jonze, two of the more prominent musicvid-turned-feature directors, have kid-lit adaptations featuring puppets (albeit of vastly differing sizes) coming out simultaneously, and that both "Mr. Fox" and "Where the Wild Things Are" strive for such hand-crafted, individualized looks. The films may have their problems, but the least one can say is that neither very closely resembles anything that's come before.

"Mr. Fox" is characterized by chapter headings that slide across the screen; trademark Anderson compositions that resemble storyboards and abundant lateral camera moves; a soundtrack that easily accommodates everything from "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" and the theme from "Day for Night" to the Beach Boys' version of "Ol' Man River"; and a hirsute male lead who would look right at home on the cover of GQ.

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) wears a double-breasted, pumpkin-colored corduroy suit, a custard-hued sweater and two stylish wheat stalks peeking out of his breast pocket. His slim, trim wife (Meryl Streep) complements him perfectly, and when he tells her, "You're still as fine-looking as a creme brulee," Anderson's sophisticated following will nod with pleasure while their kids think, "What the heck?"

As in Dahl's 81-page yarn -- whose pencil-sketch illustrations by Quentin Blake (in some editions) could not be more different from Anderson's fastidious visuals -- Mr. Fox's pelt is desperately desired by three nasty farmers whose produce he regularly poaches. Boggis and Bunce and Bean, "one fat, one short, one lean," launch all-out war on their adversary, digging down into his lair before recruiting snipers to shoot on sight.

The geological precision with which Fox and his friends'great escape is presented reps one of the film's visual highlights, as they furiously dig through layer after layer of earth to stay ahead of their enemies' onslaught. Along the way, Fox burrows up into the three men's properties, from which he pilfers enough to prepare a giant feast, while the war continues to the point of becoming a televised siege.

But the overarching drama doesn't interest Anderson and fellow screenwriter Noah Baumbach nearly as much as the family issues. In contrast to the book, in which the Foxes have four largely undifferentiated kids, here they have but one son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), who isn't sure he can meet his father's expectations. Joining them in flight are unassertive cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), opossum Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) and lawyer Badger (Bill Murray). Plainly set in England, the film maintains a linguistic divide between British-accented humans and American-accented animals.

The thematic thread here pertains to the maintenance of one's true personality and character strengths. When they have a child, Mrs. Fox gets her husband to promise to cease being a wild thing (apologies to Jonze) and become respectable. When he subsequently reverts to his old, buccaneering ways, Mr. Fox must do so surreptitiously, and when he's caught in a lie, his wife is deeply distraught that he hasn't really changed.

But it's his true character that wins the day, and it's a trait Anderson clearly advocates through his own choices. Employing a deliberately unpolished, herky-jerky style that traces back specifically to Ladislas Starevich's 1941 "The Tale of the Fox" but also variously recalls the imperfect but imperishable stop-motion techniques in the silent "The Lost World," the original "King Kong," the work of Ray Harryhausen, Norman McLaren's "A Chairy Tale" and many others, the film achieves a feel that is at once coarse-grained and elegant, antiquated and the height of fashion.

That said, individual scenes often go off in irritatingly self-indulgent directions, especially when they brush upon lifestyle issues, meditation timeouts and too-cute observations.

Much is being made of reports that Anderson was not physically present during the film's actual making in London, that he directed by remote links from Paris. It's also a matter of record that Henry Selick, who created stop-motion sequences for Anderson's "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," was originally slated to co-direct "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Whatever the case, Anderson's indelible imprint is on every frame here, more for better than for worse.

All craft aspects are aces.
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