Ahhhh Wes Anderson ... how I am meant to hate you so. Not only do you look like a Swedish pedophile, but you are insistent on making films so quirky whenever I watch them I feel like I have accidently dropped acid tabs. So as I started watching The Fantastic Mr Fox, I had my doubts, doubts that by the end of the film had dispersed into thin air; as this film is one I could watch again and again and maybe one day it will make me like you.
The Fantastic Mr Fox is the story of, um ... Mr Fox, who is fantastic, shit, the title kind of sums it up. But basically he is like the Daniel Ocean of the animal world. He makes a living out of stealing poultry from local farms, and he is proud of his work. This is until one day he and his wife are captured in the middle of a job, and she forces him to retire early, before she has their baby cub. Mr Fox is totally whipped so agrees and starts slumming it in a local paper as a columnist. Aaaaaaanyway, some stuff happens and after the move to his new tree, Mr Fox decides he wants to do 'one last job', what a classic story line that is, on these three farmers who live across the way! He hears they are all proper tools and he considers this job a challenge and a crowning moment on his storied career. So the plot is set, and Mr Fox starts lifting shit better than Winona Ryder on speed, in the process, kicking all three farmers in the piss pipe. Shit gets mad real, when one of the bitch ass farmers reckons that he can get all up in Mr Fox's shit and out smart him etc etc. I won't ruin the story from then on, but suffice to say its super fucking sweet.
I liked so many things about this film, I shall begin with the use of stop motion, which I have to give Wes mad props for; in a day when films like Avatar is breaking box office records by flooding our faces with CGI and more explosions than you can see at Roland Emmerich's birthday party, it is truly refreshing to see the good ol' method of stop motion gracing our screens once more. It adds a charm to the film that would have been lost if it was filmed in the same style as Disney Pixar and all those other animated movies that have been released over the last decade. In my opinion far more films should be made with stop motion technology, its awesome, to the freaking max; and shooting the film with 12 frames per second instead of the regulation 24, to further highlight the feel of the technique, was a move of genius.
My favourite thing about this film however, is simply how many times it made me laugh, there are loads of little, recurring themes that are so well captured and work so well, for instance; the way the characters sometimes slip into their "wild animal" state, when usually they are civilized and almost human in their behavior. We first see this when Mr Fox (voiced by George Clooney, who has, without a doubt, one of the best voices in the world, he is like Morgan Freeman, but .. well ... white) visiting his Lawyer, Mr Badger (voiced by The Wes Anderson regular, and everyones favourite, Bill Murray) and they discuss Mr Fox's purchase of a new home (tree). The conversation is civilized until a small dispute breaks out and they suddenly start snarling and scratching at each other, and then as suddenly as it began, they stop, and return to normal conversation. I hate to call it "random", as that word is used too much at the moment, but it truly was funny because it was so random. This element of the "wild animal" in the characters resurfaces throughout the film, and every damn time it does its funny, without fail. My favourite bit is when Mr Fox is served toast for breakfast by his wife and he very nicely says "thank you dear" and then without warning starts manically nomming and ripping up that plate o' toast before a few seconds later its all over gone, well apart from the bits that have flown all over the table. Mr Fox's son, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, is constant comic gold, with almost all of his lines being delivered perfectly, and his seething jealously towards his cousin portrayed perfectly in the animation, with his weird lil features scowling almost constantly when he is around him.
One thing I wonder is why Owen Wilson was pegged as one of the main cast members in all the advertising, he only has around 5 minutes of screen time (as the coach of the local Whackbat team) i'm not digging into Wilson, as this was one of the funniest parts of the film, when he explains the rules of the game to Kristofferson Silverfox, but I don't see how he made it onto the advertising campaign and Michael Gambon did'nt, even though he is a much more important character. But I shouldn't complain too much over such trivial shit to be honest.
Everything from the weird lil cameo from Jarvis Cocker, to the sounds of Michael Gambon (voicing the evil mastermind farmer, Franklin Bean), to the animation of dogs passing out from poisoned blue berries (you'll see) make this adaptation of the Roald Dahl book a truly rewarding watch, and I demand that you all go out right now and watch this movie, NOW DAMN YOU! Seriously your missing out on a film which in all honesty, should have shat all over Up! at the Oscars, but got mad snubbage for some reason. And Mr Anderson (Wes, not Neo) I am sorry for thinking all you films have been weird and overly quirky in the past, although I suppose this one is too, it's just I want to suggest you make all your films in this same style in the future, it just works better than doing it with the actors being on screen, as the puppets used are quirky in themselves so your crazy films channel well through them!
But yeah, enough about that
Till next time
Peace
Adversity over Blogging.
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