Ah, another Wes Anderson film, so familiar and charming, yet taking a different route this time, only to bring us all back to the same place. As with all of his films, he gives them a unique flair, with the dry humor and a similar look and feel. Strange family dynamics, odd characters, color, retro, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, long detailed exposition of the minutest details are all hallmarks of of Wes Anderson. Every one of his films has these elements. Fantastic Mr. Fox is just a continuation of these concepts, although in a first for him its done in classic stop motion animation, and also a first for him is that this is an adaptation not an original screen play. It could have been shot with George Clooney donning fox ears and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Wes Anderson is by definition a film auteur, at least the modern day equivalent who cranks out film after film that are almost all the same (Wikipedia has a list of auteurs but I would not lump him together with Michael Bay). I would say that if done by anyone else they run the danger of turning the audience against them because they would grow tired of the same thing every time. I don’t feel this way about Wes, I find his films to be quaint enjoyable little romps. Its the simplicity and the awkward moments, really they are films that don’t move much in the sense of the story line. These are art films that are easily digestible for the movie going public, although I suspect that its not everyone’s cup of tea and sadly the box office results reflect this. Seriously people, give this man a chance.

I liked Fantastic Mr. Fox, a charming little adaptation of the Roald Dahl book that adds a modern story line, and a bit more characterization to it. Wes took some liberties with the story and added some of his flair to give it more depth, but its mostly in tact and stays true to the source material. Another ensemble film but this is definitely all about George Clooney, I thought he was a perfect voice for Mr. Fox. His low toned gravelly voice track is befitting a character who would hypnotize you with his charm while stealing the chickens out from under you. He is a cunning character, sly (like a fox hah!) who is a master manipulator who cannot resist one last temptation to stealing chickens from the local farmers. As with any plan, things go wrong when too many people, er animals in this case, become involved and soon the farmers decide to do something about this fox problem. Things get a bit crazy from here.

As per usual, there is friction and conflict between family members. Mr. Fox’s son Ash (Jason Schwartzman), an oddball outcast of sorts has a problem with his visiting cousin Kristopherson (Eric Anderson) who seems superior to him in every way. He goes into a sulking jealousy mode as he watches his father and mother practically adopt him as their own. Wes is certainly preoccupied with sibling rivalry as it is a feature of many of his films. See what I mean by familiar? As per usual in the ensuing moments filled with awkwardness there is this sudden competitive streak between the two. There are many other great characters so its hard to pick the standouts, I loved the three farmers as well as Kylie the resident Opossum who lives in the same tree as the Fox’s. Humor is so subtle you have to really pay attention and most of the time it hits you afterwards, like you finally get the joke. Its the little things that count in these films.

The DVD for the film is a fairly average product from 20th Century Fox, although its not as full featured as the Blu-ray but its got enough extra materials to make it seem fulfilling. Its more of a light lunch rather than the full on buffet of stuff that sometimes just packs in way too much. There are three features on here, also found on the Blu-ray that provide an in depth look at the production of the film. They are longer in length and give a glimpse of what working on a stop motion film is like, although it would have been nice to have gotten more interviews with the actors. What Clooney was too busy to talk about his first experience working with Wes Anderson? The third feature is just a rehash of a brief scene in the film about the complex game of ‘Whack bat’. I still don’t get it, although that is the point.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and would probably buy it for myself as this can probably be viewed several more times with wine glass in hand. You really have to be familiar with Wes Anderson’s style, which some may find annoying. Rent it for sure just to check it out if unfamiliar.

== Dvd-Dweeb.com ==

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Calling “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson’s best movie since “The Royal Tenenbaums” sounds almost like a backhanded compliment. In the very least, it’s pretty faint praise, the type of vaguely polite remark you might fall back on when faced with, say, a friend’s awful bar band. (“Yeah man, your instruments were totally in tune.”) Admittedly, the one-two punch of “Rushmore” and ‘Tenenbaums’—for better or for worse, two of the most influential American films of the last two decades—is a hard act to follow. That still doesn’t excuse the lazy, damn near self-parodic backsliding of Anderson’s fourth and fifth features, 2004’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” and 2007’s “The Darjeeling Limited.” Like one of the Tenenbaum kids, Wes conquered the world early, then fell back to earth hard. The pressure of high expectations weighing on his every move, he deluded his own formula for success, offering a kind of Designer Imposter variation on it: diminishing returns squeezed into symmetrical compositions, predictably set to jangly classic rock tunes, and dutifully acted out by a cadre of familiar faces.

It’s been an uneven decade for this American Eccentric. So let’s not mince words here: “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is Anderson’s best movie since ‘Tenenbaums,’ and not just by default. It’s the first of his post-millennial efforts (excepting, perhaps, that marvelous American Express commercial) to get within a stone’s throw of his masterpiece, to approximate that same winning blend of droll wit and manic visual invention. An animated adaptation of a beloved book—that’s two firsts for Wes—‘Mr. Fox’ unfolds in colorful, herky-jerky stop-motion, more ‘Wallace and Gromit’ stilted than Henry Selick sinuous. It takes a hot minute, in this age of Pixar fluidity, to acclimate your eye to such a twitchily unnatural aesthetic. Once you have, though, the full breadth of immaculate, carefully crafted detail comes into focus. Anderson’s animal kingdom, all cluttered domestic spaces in a grassy woodland oasis, is as fully, lovingly realized as the Tenenbaums’ Glass-Family-by-way-of-Edward-Gorey NYC facsimile.

I still say Gorey’s a better fit for the filmmaker than Roald Dahl—imagine the meticulously macabre fantasia Wes could weave out of “The Gashlycrumb Tinies.” Still, what Anderson finds in Dahl’s slim text, about a family of foxes at war with three greedy farmers, is the freedom to let his hair down. He’s got some game playmates, too. George Clooney, doing more with his smooth pipes here than he did with the whole package in “The Men Who Stare At Goats,” is the titular, tie-wearing canine. Meryl Streep voices his exasperated wife and Jason Schwartzman their brooding brood, while a merry band of recognizable background players adopt their own critter cadences. Really, this is a furry gloss on the usual Anderson ensemble, his rouge’s gallery of neurotic, self-conscious urbanites. The token Wes signifiers naturally factor in, too—you don’t have to listen too hard to catch the Rolling Stones or Owen Wilson’s nasally drawl on the busy soundtrack.

Yet Anderson seems downright liberated by a change of scenery—as is often the case with artists who peak young, he finds freedom outside the narrow confines of his stagnating signatures. By virtue of overlapping hipster pedigrees, superficial comparisons have been drawn between this rather joyful lark and the pointedly joyless “Where the Wild Things Are.” Neither film is for children, exactly, but Anderson, unlike Spike Jonze, doesn’t mine his kiddie-lit classic for achingly personal self-reflection. He’s in it for the laughs, and ‘Mr. Fox’ has more of those (verbal, visual and otherwise) than just about any comedy this year. There are reoccurring sight gags, like the way the possum’s eyes go swirly every time he kind of nods off, or the way Schwartzman’s ill tempered junior fox twitches his ear and spits when perturbed. There are deliriously funny, one-note supporting characters, like Willem Dafoe’s villainous rodent henchman. (The movie could have used more of his cockney jazz routine.) And there’s the simple way that Anderson subs “cuss” in for assorted dirty words, a silly running joke that somehow manages to kill every single time. But if there’s a definitive source of humor here, it’s Mr. Fox's heartfelt soliloquy (spoken before frantically devouring his breakfast), which explains that beasts behave like people… then immediately behave like beasts again.

That’s a thematic concern, too. Cooped up by his domestic lifestyle, Mr. Fox longs to poach chickens again like he did in his stag days—“I’m a wild animal,” he rationalizes, before going after the prize produce of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, “three of the meanest, nastiest, ugliest farmers in the valley.” They naturally retaliate, blowing up Fox’s new upscale family home, and sending all the local wildlife underground. When Mr. Fox rallies the troops, recognizing each of their beastly skills in an “Ocean’s 11”-style role call, the movie briefly flirts with becoming a madcap heist picture. Alas, that never quite materializes, probably because Anderson doesn’t really do fiendishly complicated capers. (His feature debut, “Bottle Rocket,” hilariously confounded those exact expectations.) I can’t help but wish that “Fantastic Mr. Fox” had a little more emotional resonance to it. Though Anderson introduces a few dramatic concerns—chief among them, how a mid-life crisis can violently disrupt a family—none of them feel particularly pressing. These stop-motion creatures, with their bristling fur and disembodied voices, never blossom into fully three-dimensional characters. (Pixar, this just ain’t.) Wes’s best work remains those efforts that delicately balance pathos and belly laughs. But ‘Mr. Fox’ at least nails half that equation—if not quite 'Royal,' it’s certainly a step toward fantastic.

==Written by A.A. Dowd==

==From: In Review Online (www.inreviewonline.com)==

The visually ravishing animated movie The 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 lesser-known 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. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is an off-beat gem, a giddy mix of adult emotional issues, wild animal behavior, and childlike delight. --Bret Fetzer