Neil Smith, MSN Movies |  |
Fantastic Mr Fox: MSN Review
Ever since Pixar first presentedToy Story to a delighted world 14 years ago, animated pictures have been as polished, sophisticated and starry as any live-action feature. The first thing that strikes you about FantasticMr Fox, then, is how unpolished it looks. In an industry dominated by super-slick computerised cartoonery, its hand-made feel and old-fashioned aesthetic feels downright revolutionary.
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Those familiar with the work of film-makerWes Anderson will not be surprised by its idiosyncratic quirkiness. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anything else from the man who brought us Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited. Having a stellar cast headed by George Clooney and Meryl Streep is the only real concession to commercial realities. Without them, one might almost think that Wes had knocked the whole thing up in his garden shed.
The result is a thoroughly charming combo of Anderson’s eccentric sensibilities and the original source material, a children’s tale by Roald Dahl that is as beloved today as it was when it was first published in 1970. It’s a real labour of love, painstakingly crafted by a team of London-based animators who have worked tirelessly to achieve their director’s singular vision.
Anderson’s conceit is to make his animal heroes as human as possible. Clad in suits and ties and walking upright, Mr Fox is a working stiff whose natural impulses only come to the fore when he’s tearing apart food or digging tunnels. He even dances, a talent that tests the skills of those animators to their very limits.
It’s a gloriously subversive way to treat animation’s traditions of anthropomorphism, put across with the dry, deadpan humour that has become Anderson’s trademark. Yet fashioning a stop-motion fable populated by foxes, rabbits and other furry beasts does create a tension between what we expect from this director and what we have come to expect from this genre.
Simply put, it’s never entirely clear whom Fantastic Mr Fox is for.
Children will love the critters at first but may grow restless at the reams of knowing, smart-alecky dialogue. Grown-ups, meanwhile, will find it all a touch cutesy, not to mention lacking in the sharp storytelling that remains Pixar’s biggest contribution to the current animation boom.
Part of this may be down to Dahl’s original book, which, at a slender 96 pages long, hardly gives Anderson and his screenwriting partner Noah Baumbach a great deal to work with. After all, there is only so much you can do with a story about a wily fox outfoxing three odious local farmers named Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Their solution is to embellish the supporting cast, fleshing out Mr Fox’s relationship with his long-suffering wife and the role of his insecure son Ash. They also elaborate Mr Fox himself – no mere cider thief here, but a reformed criminal turned newspaper reporter who, nevertheless, can’t stop stealing chickens.
What they don’t do is generate sufficient incident to sustain the movie throughout its 87-minute duration. Instead they pad it out with incidental detail that, while engaging, can’t help but try the patience.
It’s a testament to Clooney’s inherent charisma that he makes Mr Fox as likeable and personable as any of his flesh-and-blood protagonists. Streep, too, supplies a perfectly modulated performance as his loyal spouse that’s full of both formidable testiness and maternal concern.
Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman is a gas as Ash, while Bill Murray continues his long association with the film-maker by fashioning the relatively small role of Badger into a priceless comic turn.
For all that, though, you leave thinking Fantastic Mr Fox could have been rather more fantastic.
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A beautifully realised one-off whose many pleasures don’t prevent it slightly outstaying its welcome.
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