Fantastic Mr. Fox

For this year’s “Thanksgiving Day Movie Reviews,” I had to look up films to watch around this time. Looking at one of the lists, I found the 2009 stop-motion animated film, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

Some artists have a way of exciting your vision with the certainty of what they do. This has nothing to do with subject or style. It’s mysterious. Roger Ebert made the following examples in his review, “Andy Warhol and Grandma Moses. The spareness of Bergman or the Fellini circus. Wes Anderson is like that. There's nothing consistent about his recent work but its ability to make me go zooinng! What else do "The Darjeeling Limited" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" have in common?”

Now here’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” an animated film with nothing in common with traditional animation, except that it’s mainly in one of the oldest animation styles of the time – stop-motion, the one used in “King Kong.” The animals aren’t smaller than people but are often larger, and more mature.

They sometimes live in a flat space. The cameras are happier moving back and forth than moving in and out. Ebert said, “The landscapes and structures of this world are mannered and picture-booky. Yet the extraordinary faces of the animals are almost disturbingly human (for animals, of course). We venture into the UnCanny Valley, that No Man's Land dividing humans from the devised. Above all, their fur is so real. I've rarely seen such texture in a film.”

The story is about a valley somewhere, by which is meant the world, which is under the supervision of:

Boggis and Bunce and Bean,

One fat, one short, one lean.

These horrible crooks, so different in looks.

Were nonetheless equally mean.

None of the animals are saints. Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, was a successful chicken thief until things got tough. Ebert described, “Then, like a bootlegger after the repeal, he went straight -- or, more precisely, into journalism. He's the Walter Winchell of the valley, until he slips back into dining on takeout chicken, taking them out himself.” This he keeps a secret from his wife, Mrs. Fox, voiced by Meryl Streep.

His cover is blown, to everyone’s huge disappointment, when Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and Bean (Michael Gambon) all get ticked off and want to murder them. Leading a team of other animals (Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Wes Anderson, James Hamilton, Adrien Brody, Mario Batali), Mr. Fox starts digging underground like the protagonists of “The Great Escape” – but in rather than out.

This film looks at personal issues, as doubt comes in between Mr. Fox’s immature son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), and a cousin named Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). Kristofferson is everything a fox should be, as with that name how could he not? He’s the family's quintessential fox. Does Mr. Fox admire the cousin more than his son? What kind of a father has he been, anyway?

Ebert described, “All of the animals have excellent tailoring, which adds to their stature. They're not forced to wear silly sailor suits, or like Donald Duck, never to put on pants. The art design is a large part of the film's appeal. It stays fresh all the way through. Think back to the color palettes of "Darjeeling" and "The Life Aquatic."

The film is based on the famous children’s book by Roald Dahl, which like all his books, has threatening suggestions, as if evil can sneak in at any moment. These animals aren’t serving anyone in the audience. We get the feeling they’re seriously leading their own lives without slowing down for ours.

Like the protagonist of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factor,” also based on one of his books, the animals of Dahl’s Valley seem to know more than they’re letting on. Maybe even secrets we don’t much want to know. Children, especially, will find things they don’t understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. Ebert suggested, “A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them. Six is a little early for a movie to suggest to kids that the case is closed. Oh, what if the kids start crying about words they don't know? -- Mommy, Mommy! What's creme brulee?" Show them, for goodness sake. They'll thank you for it. Take my word on this.”

This film is nice to see with the family. I don’t see anything in here that would be harmful for kids. What I found especially funny is that everywhere there would have been a swear word, they replaced it with “cuss.” I laughed every time they did that. This is a film that shows you that you should be thankful for everything you have. Check it out on Max and have a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Enjoy the dinner tonight that I know everyone is looking forward to, myself included. Look out tomorrow when I finish off “Steve Carrell Month.”