The Ava Report: FANTASTIC MR. FOX

As much as I enjoyed RUSHMORE, that film alone has not been enough to convince me Wes Anderson ought be memorialized as one of our best directors. Since then, his movies, so clearly informed by his unique aesthetic, have been special though not spectacular, mostly because he’s allowed textual integrity to succumb to his auteurial style. However, with his first family film, the glorious stop-motion adaptation of FANTASTIC MR. FOX, Anderson triumphs, perfectly blending his off-beat sensibilities with that of the story’s originator, the delightfully twisted Roald Dahl. FANTASTIC MR. FOX plays like a Rankin-Bass feature re-imagined by Alexander Payne. Playful and satiric, the movie is one of the best kidpics in quite some time. Even my six-year-old daughter Ava agrees…

FANTASTIC MR. FOX was great. I thought it was interesting and exciting but at some parts I was a bit nervous because if Mr. Fox and Kylie did not hurry up, the farmers would find them. I also thought how the movie-makers made all of the characters was very interesting because I had never seen [animation] like that. I liked Mrs. Fox. She was a bit like my mom because my mom is tough. All the voices were good. I really liked Kylie [Wally Wolodarsky]. At some parts, Kylie got scared and just stared and stared. It was so funny when Kylie did that. I didn’t think FANTASTIC MR. FOX was the best at first but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Indeed, FANTASTIC MR. FOX gets even better upon reflection. The (detachable?) tale tickles and the handmade imagery rocks. (To learn about the making-of, check out this wonderful video.)