Tuesday, February 7, 2012

review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox (movie)

I had serious reservations about seeing this movie. Not that I have anything against stop-motion animation - I love "Wallace & Grommet" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas". But those were movies from the good old days of my youth and the 90's. Thus the appeal of watching a new stop-motion animation movie without being driven by one's youthful unconditional love was absolutely non-inspiring.

Not only was the stop-motion animation really well done - you could see the detail on the fur!!! - but the plot was well thought out with wonderful little bright moments liberally peppered in with lots of comedy. One of my favorite repeating moments are between Ash and Kristofferson. Ash is the Fantastic Mr. Fox's son and Kristofferson is a distant relation (I believe a son of a cousin... don't quote me on that). Anyways, Ash hates Kristofferson with a passion because Kristofferson comes so naturally to things that Ash struggles with. The best example is seen with this ridiculously complicated game that Mr. Fox has won medals in but Ash is a dismal player. Kristofferson also gets the girl that Ash likes. And has a great personality while Ash is.... difficult in the best of situations..

The story begins with Mr. Fox and a then Ms. Fox breaking into a secure facility to steal some chickens (i believe - again don't quote me) either - Boggis, Bunce, and Bean however after stealing the chickens (maybe?), Mr. Fox triggers a trap. He and Ms. Fox dig their way out after Ms. Fox revealing that she's pregnant.

Years pass and Mr. Fox has given up his nighttime break-ins as promised to the now Mrs. Fox. Instead he works as a columnist. His hum-drum life begins to wear on him so one night he decides to break into one of the three farmer's (
Boggis, Bunce, and Bean) storage facilities. He goes on two more raids to the remaining farmer's storage facilities and raids them too. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean then get together and decide to go after Mr. Fox. The farmers surround the Fox home and wait until Mr. Fox leaves. When they try to kill him all they succeed in doing is shooting off his tail.

To find out the fate of the Fox family and see is Mr. Fox deserves that title of "fantastic", you'll just have to watch the rest of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". I give this new stop-motion animation classic 4.5 out of 5 stars for great acting, stop-motion animation, and soundtrack.


Check out the trailer here!

4 comments:

  1. Ummm..."The Fantastic Mr. Fox" isn't claymation. It's just stop-motion animation. That's why you could see the detail on the fur; it was real fur. See:
    http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/11/how-the-puppets-from-fantastic-mr-fox-were-made-slideshow

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  2. thanks Jess.... think you could comment on the topic and not my writing? ;)

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  3. Also, the plot is so good because it's based on a book by Roald Dahl!

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    1. This is true. I feel like almost all his works make good movies - "The Witches", "Matilda", "The BFG", "James and the Giant Peach"

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