DVD Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

The movie Fantastic Mr. Fox is director Wes Anderson's first animated film, and Anderson's uniquely skewed sensibilities work well in the film's stop-action animated universe. From its snarky dialogue to its catchy vintage pop soundtrack, the film shares many Anderson hallmarks with the director's much-loved other films such as Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Based on the Roald Dahl children's novel, Fantastic Mr. Fox -- now available on DVD and Blu-ray -- is not a complicated story. Mr. Fox (George Clooney), who has a penchant for daring squab thefts and other nocturnal adventures, promises to give up his reckless ways when his wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep), announces that she's pregnant. He keeps his promise for a couple of years, settling into a life of responsible parenthood with Mrs. Fox and their growing son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman).

All is mostly well until the Foxes move from their cozy den into a better home in the base of a tree near land owned by notoriously mean farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean, (Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guinness and Michael Gambon, respectively). The Foxes' smart and athletically talented nephew Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) moves in with the family, creating tension with a very jealous Ash. And tempted by the many treasures on the nearby farms, Mr. Fox soon is back to his thieving ways, making daring raids with help from his building superintendent, a somewhat dense opossum named Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky).

Angered by the brazen thefts, Boggis, Bunce and Bean vow to kill Mr. Fox in variously violent ways. The ensuing battle is a rollicking man vs. nature tale with plenty of suspense and action, all happening within Anderson's signature milieu of slightly off-kilter characters, ironic humor and cinematic in-jokes. The clever, visually rich animation adds another level of creative freedom to this milieu, liberating the action from real-world laws of biology and physics. The characters -- most of them a menagerie of anthropomorphized animals -- gleefully defy gravity and perform Herculean physical tasks far beyond the human limitations of Max Fischer in Rushmore or Etheline Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums.

While I enjoyed Fantastic Mr. Fox, it's not without flaws. The voices of Clooney, Streep and other megawatt stars (Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe and Owen Wilson) no doubt boost box office receipts and DVD sales, but they're so familiar that they sometimes jarred me out of the film's charming and imaginative animated world. Whenever Mr. Fox and Felicity had a conversation, I kept hearing Clooney and Streep. And although children's films often sacrifice character development in favor of action and visual appeal, in many ways the snarky and ironic Fantastic Mr. Fox isn't really a children's film, and its mostly one-dimensional characters might not satisfy an adult audience.

Despite these flaws, Fantastic Mr. Fox offers plenty of family oriented fun for children and adults alike. It's a family film that even Anderson's hipster film-nerd fans can enjoy.

Extras: Along with the theatrical trailer and sneak previews of other DVDs, the DVD includes two interesting documentary shorts. "From Script to Screen" chronicles the process of transforming a short children's book into a feature-length film and describes how Anderson modified his usual filmmaking techniques to work with animated models instead of live actors. "Still Life" delves further into the complex and painstakingly slow process of stop-action animation. (If you're an impatient person, demand instant gratification and are not detail oriented, stop-action animation probably isn't a good career choice.)

Another extra, "A Beginner's Guide to Whack-Bat," consists of footage from the film's clever scene of a complicated sport called whack-bat, a cross between cricket and baseball with amusingly complicated rules. The short presents the footage as a scratchy, sepia-toned vintage newsreel; it's mildly funny, but is little more than a rehashing of the original scene.

Austin/Texas Connections: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson are both native Texans and attended The University of Texas at Austin, where they were roommates. Two of Anderson's films, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, were shot in Texas.

Buy Fantastic Mr. Fox through Amazon on DVD or Blu-ray. A soundtrack CD is also available, as well as the original Roald Dahl short novel.