johnlink ranks FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009)
When I heard about this project, I thought this was a perfect marriage of George Clooney’s sense of humor and Wes Anderson’s style of filmmaking. Add in a unique stop-motion style of animation, and I had a pretty good idea that this would be, if nothing else, a unique experience.
I watched FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009) on 12.8.10. It was my first viewing of the film. TRAILER HERE
‘Unique’ really is the only word for this film. The story is that Mr. Fox (Clooney) is a retired and settled animal thief who’s new home is just too close to three giant farms for him not to go for ‘one last big score’. The success of this endeavors lead the ruthless farmers to come after him, his family, and his friends. This is an adult movie in the guise of a PG animated film. I love that they must have literally wrote ‘shit’ ‘fuck’ etc, into the script, and merely replaced every iteration with the word ‘cuss’.
The animation is very stylized, and as a style it fits the tone of the movie perfectly. We get herky-jerky motion, we get some seemingly impossible movements, and we get hair on their faces moving in the breeze. None of it is realistic at all, but it never purports to be.
I watched this yesterday morning. When it popped on HBO again today, I watched the last thirty minutes again. It is highly watchable, but only if Wes Anderson is your bag. Some people hate him, I love him. This made me want to rewatch ROYAL TENNENBAUMS right away.
There are some great moments of ‘symbolism’ which are so heavy-handed that they are self mocking. The moment with the wolf after the climax is hilarious in the way it sends-up similar endings. The ‘toasts’ Mr. Fox give are perfect writing. Really, this whole script (based on a Roald Dahl book) works. This is a film I do not own, but one I plan to get. I hope I can get my son to fall in love with it, so that I have an excuse to watch it repeatedly. I am a terrible father that way.
SCORES
FILM: 6; MOVIE: 9; ACTING: 7; WRITING: 7
6+9+7+7+0=29
FINAL SCORE: 7.25
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[…] come to think of this movie as the live-action lesser cousin to Wes Anderson’s better FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Both are about alpha men who have blundered their way to alpha status, but are ill equipped to […]
johnlink ranks THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004) « johnlinkmovies said this on December 4, 2011 at 10:59 pm |