Saturday, December 26, 2009

Fantastic Mr Fox

Tremendously pleasing. The idea of Wes Anderson doing this book in stop-motion animation, with all of the animal characters essentially acting (and dressed) like Wes Anderson characters, was always very appealing, and the end result is delightful. Oddly, it probably has the most consistent tone and recognisably 'normal' characters of any of his films to date - normal, at any rate, in the sense that the layers of emotional affect (both the characters' and our responses to them) are relatively naturalistic, insofar as that's a meaningful comment to make about a bunch of nattily-dressed talking animals. But above all else, Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox is a lot of fun - very likeable, with just the right amounts of archness, slapstick, 60s music, conflict, feeling, and existential moments.

(w/ Kevin)