The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by Wes Anderson
Written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Starring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon

With a film like The Fantastic Mr. Fox there is obviously going to be more than one of us that wanted to review it. Instead of pulling rank and deleting everyone else’s accounts, I went all King Solomon on this article’s ass. Both Jakebe and I have stuff so say, and dammit we’re going to say it.

Starting with Jakebe.

It’s getting hard to tell these days what’s sorts of things are happy accidents and what’s being aggressively stealth-marketed to the furry set; our little hobby is just mainstream enough that it’s a distinct possibility. George Clooney as a dashingly handsome, roguish fox? Meryl Streep as his honey-voiced vixen? Come on! That’s just ridiculous. If they weren’t trying to lure us in droves, you could have fooled me.

Will it work? Hell yes. Let’s be honest; you’ve become familiar enough with the look of the film that you’re going to go or not no matter what I say here. So I won’t waste my breath trying to convince you to change your mind. What I will say is that if you like Wes Anderson’s particular brand of quirkiness, or good, quirky animation in general, then you will absolutely love this movie.

Clooney stars as our titular hero, from a book written by Roald Dahl; he’s made a promise to his lovely wife Felicity to never steal chickens again after a particularly close call. Now, some time later they’ve become a poor old couple with a young, strange kit on their paws. Mr. Fox is a newspaper columnist, and Mrs. Fox is a landscape painter. Their kit, Ash, fancies himself an athlete but really he’s just a weirdo who’s no good at anything. After moving to a new place that makes them feel only slightly less poor, Mr. Fox finds the temptation provided by three farms within clear sight too great. He succumbs to his wild nature, and the hijinks ensue from there.

The movie is populated with all kinds of great characters. There are broad personality tics that befit the wild menagerie of cartoons Anderson is working with, but he grounds them with his usual understated style and dry wit. The result is something that’s unapologetically loony, but paradoxically mature. It’s a strange, erudite regression to childhood imaginings that I’ve never really experienced before. It’s utterly enchanting.

And that’s what makes it much better than the other for-adults children’s movie that came out this holiday season, Where the Wild Things Are (sorry, Wild Things!). While both movies deal with pretty heavy subject matter — Wild Things deals with the unresolved anger and emotional suppression of childhood, while Mr. Fox tackles existential crises, the pain of being on the fringes of society, and parental ambivalence — this movie deals with it in a much gentler way. There’s heavy stuff, but there’s also foxy hotness and a joyful silliness that makes it easier to swallow.

This is, quite simply, a Robin Hood for a new generation. I don’t want to overstate the case for the movie here, but it has that feel. Furries have been citing Robin Hood as a sort of Holy Grail of fandom movies for a long time now, and I think that Fantastic Mr. Fox could easily come to occupy that same place in our lore. Thankfully, Wes Anderson’s creation is a much better story than the former, so we don’t have to quite feel so guilty about taking pleasure in it this time.
–Jakebe

A Wes Anderson family film sounded a little iffy at the start, but The Fantastic Mr. Fox has proven that the director can do anything, so long as he gets to be himself. Roald Dahl really is the perfect author for Anderson to adapt. They’re both crazy, but brilliant and charming despite it.

Now this is the kind of film that most of the readership here will see anyway, and probably already have. But the style seems to have dissuaded a number of you. Honestly I can’t imagine this film being done any other way. The stop motion, which is admittedly crude at times, really captures the intentional awkwardness that Anderson infuses in his films. A slick 3D CGI production or, God forbid, a live action film, wouldn’t have worked for this. And consider the source material. Dahl had Quentin Blake, who quite possibly draws the most hideous characters, illustrate all his books. The ugly is part of the charm.

The book itself is more of a short story than a novel, so the movie actually expands on everything. I honestly had no complaints with any of the changes. Mr. Fox has one awkward, “different” son instead of multiple kids, which allows new character cousin Kristofferson to come in and actually give the younger characters depth.

The whole film seethes Anderson. If you like him, you’ll like this because it literally is every Wes Anderson film you’ve seen, but starring animals. If you’re like my family and can’t get into the dry humor, melancholy relationships, or quaintness that defines his pictures, you’ll probably be left unimpressed. The uninitiated may get an introductory course in Anderson films. A lot of the key players are here, since he loves to use the same actors. The dialogue is down to earth, and perfectly timed. He even through in a large smattering of cuss words, though they have all been replaced with the word “cuss” making for some adorable turns of phrase.

There are a lot of bullshit complaints I could make on behalf of the community. Stuff about paws and the amount of clothing, or whatever. But honestly if you’re one of those people, shut the fuck up. You know who I mean. The ones that bitched that the Cloverfield monster wasn’t hot enough. Like Hollywood owes you or something.

Everyone else: this movie is hilarious, charming, and well acted. But you probably already knew that.
–Lovejoy