Fantastic Mr Fox (Dir Wes Anderson, 1h 28m, 2009)

Well, ma, I made it. This review, that you hold in your hands-well, read on your screen- is #200, and whilst there seems no end to the temporary pause on cinema going, despite the rufflings from the milling multiplexes eager to make Christopher Nolan's Tenet the kickstart back to normality, these little reviews of movies past continue. What better way to celebrate this than with one of the finest cinematic adaptions of my childhood favourite author, Roald Dahl, in the form of the warm, witty and typically Andersonic adaption of Dahl's 1970 novel of a quick-witted fox (voiced by George Clooney in full charm-offensive mode) and his family doing battle with three odious and merciless farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean.

Opening with a smartly done sequence that introduces Mr Fox, his wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep) and the three farmers, finding themselves in one of the farmers traps causes Felicity to admit she is pregnant, and Mr Fox to settle down as a columnist for the local newspaper to raise their son, the nervy Ash. Mr Fox, however, finds himself restless, first moving the family, and tag-along nephew Kristopherson, who proves popular among the local animals to Ash's annoyance, to a tree overlooking the three farmers, before commiting himself to one final job against the trio with opossum Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky), in tow.

By this point, this film has not only introduced many of the Anderson hallmarks, from his favoured actors, including Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Anderson himself, but his visual and narrative sensibilities. Nowhere is this seen better than in the Beach-Boys soundtracked opening sequence, with Anderson's typically mannered dialogue, the intricate sets, the perfectly framed and cut scenes, and the slow tracking pan across, following the duo of foxes in their heist and eventual capture. As a piece of animation, it is nothing short of beautiful, as an introduction to our protagonists pitch perfect, the transition from Anderson's typically artificial, almost dream-like sets to the animated world executed flawlessly.


With these three heists going off with only minor hitches, most notably Wilhelm Defoe's sleazy knife wielding Rat, and a close shave with Bean's wife, so the plan seems to have gone off without a hitch. However, the farmers, led by Bean (an enjoyably chilling Michael Gambon), have other ideas and first stake out, then begin, after Mr Fox's tail is shot off, to dig out, the family. Thus begins a series of quickly escalating attempts between Mr Fox and the farmers to out-fox each other. These range from a full blown Dollars-aping showdown in the local village to a rescue attempt from Bean's farm, to the animals being flushed out of their holes with gallons of cider, and just plain blowing stuff up.
 
Throughout all of this, up to the smartly underplayed denoument, the Andersonic fingerprints can be seen everywhere, from the intricate puppets, sets and props, including Anderson's typical love of letters, writing and newspapers, some of which are seen on screen for only a few seconds, and the lush animated backdrops that, like Anderson's previous forays into animation in his live action films, has a degree of deliberate artificiality to it, to the clothing and fur of our characters.
 Elsewhere, the Sixties-dominated soundtrack, and a bizarre, if entirely in-keeping from Jarvis Cocker playing a bluegrass song, there is an attention to detail, the perfect song used in the perfect moment, a care that, of course, extends to the typically snappy dialogue that, at points, zips back and forth between characters.

And then there are the characters themselves. Mr Fox would simply not be the quirky quick-witted hero that feels like a perfect translation of Dahl's protagonist to modern sensibilties without Clooney's sterling voice work that makes him utterly charming. Streep's Felicity is a neatly played foil that greatly expands the character from the original, at once concerned mother and supportive wife, whilst Ash and Kristopherson go from bickering rivals to firm friends, through the perils that befall them. Even side-characters like Defoe's malicious Rat, Murray's cantakerous Badger and the three farmers themselves are a perfect mix of puppet with pitch-perfect casting


Whilst the narrative has, of course, to expand Dahl's thin children's book to a full hour and a half, it is here that Anderson's skill as a film maker matches that of Dahl as an author. Whilst he uproots the setting to what feels like a strange amalgam of the Buckinghamshire countryside that clearly influenced Dahl and a Upper-East Coast hinterland, nowhere is Dahl's sense of charm and narrative lost, with Anderson's embellishments only adding to the relationship between Mr Fox and Ash, and Ash and Kristopherson, in what are familiar, but perfectly crafted treaties upon Anderson's themes of fatherhood and friendship

It is small wonder, thus, that Anderson returned, some years after Fantastic Mr Fox, to animation, in the excellently crafted, and impressively scaled Isle of Dogs, a smart, funny, and remarkably respectful homage to Japanese cinema. Whilst the latter gained multiple plaudits, there is something...fantastic about Fantastic Mr. Fox, a smart, funny, beautifully crafted adaption of many peoples' beloved childhood read that, if nothing else, cements Wes Anderson as a master craftsman of quirky off-beat cinema

Rating: Must See (Personal Recommendation)