Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney), a former thief who changed his ways and became a newspaper columnist when his wife (Meryl Streep) became pregnant with their son (Jason Schwartzman), hatches a plan to hit the factories of three of his former targets. His plan goes off without a hitch, and soon he and his friends are enjoying a bounty of chickens, apples, and hard cider. But the factory’s owners--particularly the trigger-happy Mr. Bean (Michael Gambon)--don’t take too kindly to being filched, so they hatch a plan of their own, one they hope will result in Mr. Fox’s violent demise.

CRITIQUE

It seemed like an odd pairing--the filmmaker who gave us Bottle Rocket and The Life Aquatic adapting a work by the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches, and employing a style of animation being kept alive by only a handful of artists--but that just goes to show you where jumping to conclusions will get you. Not only has the melding of Wes Anderson’s and Roald Dahl’s sensibilities produced the best cinematic take on the latter’s work since Willy Wonka, it’s also resulted in the former’s best movie since Rushmore. To take the easy path, the adjective in the title of this movie is an apt one.

To draw a parallel to another fortuitous meeting of director and literary work, what Anderson does here is quite similar to what Quentin Tarantino did when he turned Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch into Jackie Brown. Just as that wasn’t a wholly faithful adaptation, neither is Mr. Fox. But what Tarantino brought to the proceedings dovetailed perfectly with Leonard’s novel, and that’s the case here; Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach have both expanded Dahl’s story (the text essentially comprises the movie’s second act and a bit of the third) and injected the setting, plot, and characters with all of the hallmarks of an Anderson movie.

The humor is dry and drenched in irony, there’s a slightly off-kilter family dynamic at the heart of the story, and the visual stylistics--from the blocking and framing, to the use of extreme close-ups, and right on down to the color palette--is distinctly Anderson. But it’s all a perfect complement to the darkness and wryness that filled Dahl’s book. It’s Anderson’s movie through and through, but it still manages to be an excellent representation of the source material.

In recent years stop-motion has advanced to the stage where at times it can be indistinguishable from CG (look at The Corpse Bride), but here the animation (which was directed by Mark Gustafson, who took over after Henry Selick left to make Coraline) harkens back to the original King Kong and the classic Rankin-Bass television specials. It’s slightly jerky, and as a result of being constantly handled by the animators, the animals’ fur “boils”; better still, smoke is represented by cotton, which almost made me weep with joy. All of this may prove to be a distraction for some, but there’s just no hope for some people.

I wouldn’t say this is a kid’s movie inasmuch as it is a distinctly Wes Anderson movie that casts its net at a wider audience. The humor isn’t what you find in what far too often passes for younger-crowd entertainment these days (and by that I mean it’s not aggressively stupid and there’s not a cheap fart or poop joke to be found), but there’s definitely stuff here the young ones will enjoy. Like the best family or all-ages entertainment, Fantastic Mr. Fox can be appreciated by different people on different levels, and even by many people on the same levels. And while it didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, I have the feeling there’s an audience out there just waiting to discover it.          

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--is flawless. The animation was captured using Nikon D3 digital cameras, which reportedly offer extremely high resolution, and every aspect of the visuals is perfectly rendered. The vibrant colors are beautifully delineated, and every detail woven into the bodies and costumes of the puppets is readily visible. (It also affords the opportunity to catch the jokes buried in Mr. Fox’s newspapers and on the label of a guard dog’s rabies medication, the latter of which offers one of the movie’s biggest laughs.) It’s simply, well, fantastic.

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track isn’t quite the equal of the video, but this is due primarily to Anderson’s decision to record the dialogue in real-world locations that were (more or less) representative of the movie’s numerous settings. In other words, when Fox and his possum pal Kylie are seen tooling around on a motorcycle, dialogue for the scene was recorded while Clooney and Wally Wolodarsky (who voices Kylie) sat on an actual motorcycle. This leads to a slightly uneven quality, with minor volume fluctuations, dropouts, and somewhat unnatural colorings at times. But the elements that were created from scratch sound great, and the overall mix itself is a strong one; the low end is put to good use, adding perfect reinforcement to both the action and the music.

French, Spanish, and Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included; English SDH, Cantonese, French, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

All of the extras here are presented in high-definition.

Making Mr. Fox Fantastic (45 minutes) is a good making-of piece. Viewable as a longer whole or as six short featurettes, it covers such topics as adapting the book, creating and animating the puppets, and the voice cast.

The World of Roald Dahl (3 minutes) is largely recycled from the above piece, offering glimpses at Dahl’s home (which was used as a template for the movie’s primary setting) and positing the idea that he based Mr. Fox largely on himself

A Beginner’s Guide to Whack-Bat (1 minute), which is designed to look like the sort of old filmstrip many of us may remember from our schooldays, explains the rules of the animals’ favorite sport. (I defy anyone to make heads or tails of said rules.)

From Script to Screen featurette

The Puppet Makers featurette

Still Life - Puppet Animation featurette

The Cast, Bill and His Badger featurette

Rounding out the extras is the movie’s theatrical trailer.

A second disc features a DVD of the movie.

A third disc houses a digital copy of it in standard definition.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Paltry cussin’ extras aside, this is a pretty fantastic release.