“Mr. Fox” lives up to its title

Wes Anderson’s movies all take place in hipster-cartoonish environments that tease at reality while testing the limits of muted surrealism. So it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine his touch applied to Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.  But like Spike Jonze did with Where the Wild Things Are, Anderson has repositioned the kid-oriented source material to achieve lofty, adult-oriented goals. In this case, the result is a light-hearted yet honest exploration of masculinity that gently poses some major existential questions.

Voiced confidently by George Clooney (to the point where one feels convinced that the animated character is actually being portrayed by the actor), Mr. Fox is faced with a mid-life crisis. Having sacrificed his career as an expert chicken thief, Fox has settled into a safe life of domestication as a husband, father, and newspaper columnist. But he feels inadequate as a provider – and is disappointed with how little he shares in common with his son – so he compensates by moving the family out of their foxhole and into a tree.

The view from his new front window – of the three neighboring estates of menacing farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean – rekindles his passion for thievery and in an act of defiance against his dull life, Fox steals from his old enemies. This ignites a massive turf war between the humans and Fox’s wildlife peers, and the two sides engage in a tense and consistently amusing game of increasing stakes.

Typical to a Wes Anderson self-titled “Empirical Picture,” the dialogue is pitch-perfect as it strikes a balance between wit and a profession of things better left unsaid. Clooney’s Fox is a wonderful mix of cunning, ego, and stupidity, and the supporting characters like Bill Murray’s lawyer Badger or Willem Dafoe’s sinister Rat bring a level of believability to the stop-motion animated characters that is foreign to just about anything that Pixar hasn’t made.

And if the story, dialogue, or characters don’t claim a viewer’s full attention, the stunning style of animation surely will. It is so vibrant and unique that it simply needs to be experienced, but suffice it to say that it belongs firmly to Wes Anderson’s genius mind.

5/5