Fantastic Mr. Fox
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By Kent Turner -- School Library Journal, 11/11/2009 2:20:00 PM
Director/cowriter Wes Anderson adds existential heft to Fantastic Mr. Fox, his nimble-footed adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic showdown between nature and man (Knopf, 1970). Anderson asks how a fox can attain happiness without killing and devouring its prey, toning down the book’s central question: Why wouldn’t a father steal a few chickens to save his starving children?
Early in the animated film, Mr. Fox promises Mrs. Fox that he’ll settle down, raise a family, and never poach from the nearby gun-happy farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Beans. (As in the book, the first villain is morbidly obese, the second short, and the third a spindly lean alcoholic living off apple cider.) But when Mr. Fox falls off the wagon and follows his animal instincts to kill, he places his family and fellow burrowers in danger.
Fortunately, we’re spared a literal visualization of Dahl’s Bean, who’s so filthy that his earholes are clogged with muck and dead flies, among other things. In fact, Anderson plays down the book’s macabre details. Though the vigilante farmers still try to kill the critters by any means necessary, shooting off Mr. Fox’s tail in the process, the tone is much more playful than in the book. Anderson adds a robust sense of humor through sight gags and vaudevillian shtick between the suave, cunning Mr. Fox and his sidekick, a roly-poly and dim-witted possum.
The hip Fantastic Mr. Fox is a less precious and more precocious approach than Spike Jonze’s spin on another classic, Where the Wild Things Are. Anderson handles the material with care, but with less reverence and more abandonment, reflected in the wildly eclectic soundtrack, from an Ennio Morricone-inspired spaghetti Western score to songs by the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.
Besides the music, adults will take to the autumnal-toned retro production design—the handmade stop-motion figures are refreshingly rudimentary compared to most of today’s computer-generated animation, and kids will especially relate to the one-sided rivalry between two young boy foxes, the hapless Ash and his cousin Kristofferson, the yoga-practicing teacher’s pet. The fast-paced action will more than hold the attention of older adolescents, while the “aaaaw” factor will hit the roof for those younger.
What might be a bit off-putting for Dahl fans is that the film becomes, in many ways, a George Clooney vehicle, of all things. He provides the voice of the glib cool cat, uh, fox of the title, who ventures out into the night for one more heist, I mean scavenger hunt. It’s hard not to think of the film as a sequel to the actor’s Ocean's 11. But even if Mr. Fox’s signature trademark, two double clicks with the tongue and then a whistle, gets tiresome, he’s just one part of an infectiously upbeat menagerie.
Directed by Wes Anderson
88 min.
Rated PG (many chickens R.I.P.)
All photos: Fox Searchlight Pictures
