After a chicken robbery goes dangerously wrong, at the urging of his pregnant wife Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) the confidently easygoing Mr. Fox (George Clooney) trades a career of death-defying exploits and escapes for the quiet life of a newspaperman. But domesticity is not all it’s cracked up to be, and after twelve quiet years the cagey animal returns to his wild ways targeting the farms of evil and mean Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon) for his triumphant return to thievery.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox in Fox Searchlight's Fantastic Mr. Fox

While things at first go well, the put-upon farmers attempt to exact their revenge trapping the Fox family, including son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), and the rest of the local animal community underground in the sewers. Running out of food and time, Mr. Fox bands everyone together to use their own natural instincts to combat their foes, save their lives and make Boggis, Bunce and Bean look like the grotesquely grubby fools they are.

Based on the classic book by Roald Dahl, writer (working once more with Noah Baumbach) and director Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop-motion marvel that just so happens to be a perfect addition to his quirky character-driven filmography. Like Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited before it, this animated sensation is an odd, wildly funny enterprise ranking as one of the year’s finest achievements.

In all honesty, I’m not sure how much Dahl is left in Anderson and Baumbach’s highly anachronistic screenplay. Mr. Fox, his family and his friends don’t speak with any of the same cadences you’d find in say Matilda or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, acting instead like the same arch, supremely focused and highly sarcastic souls found in just about all of the director’s works. These characters are Anthony Adams and Dignan all over again, but while they’re still walking around on two legs their inherent natures are far more, if you’ll excuse lingo, animalistic.

Yet the spirit behind all the chaos and insanity is still distinctly Dahl’s. The irreverence is of the author’s world, and watching it I couldn’t help but think he’d applaud if he had ended up having the opportunity to see what Anderson had done with his story and the way in which he decided to bring it to life. Dahl liked to buck convention, loved to show people – most of the time youngsters – facing their obstacles with tenacity and courage. He liked to show that authority is sometimes worth mocking, all the while offering up a warmhearted moral that spoke to the way life should, even if it isn’t always, be.

On a purely narrative level, this is easily the director’s best film since Rushmore. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a consistent marvel, going from highs to lows to all the places in-between with a cocksure confidence that’s perfectly awesome. The characters created here pop off the screen, and between the sublime animation to the superb vocal work there isn’t a single moment or scene that doesn’t ring hysterically true.