Night @ the Movies.

Wes Anderson directs this stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic book of the same name.  With Anderson, people either really like his films, or don’t find them funny at all.  As usual, he brings his regulars with him (Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray) as well as his dry, witty, off-beat sense of humor.

Mr. Fox is a chicken thief, and a damn good one.  But when he finds out his wife is pregnant, he realizes that he needs a more stable, less dangerous job.  So he begins to write for the local newspaper.  After his brother-in-law becomes sick with double pneumonia, his nephew, Kristofferson, is sent to live with the Foxes.  The Foxes son, Ash, is socially awkward and kind of a jerk to people.  Naturally, Kristofferson is good at everything, and this makes Ash even more annoyed.

What eventually takes place is a very chaotic story that you think is ending about 4 different times.  The reviews have been mostly positive, but a lot of people felt like the story didn’t really make sense and you didn’t really learn anything from it.  I felt like the movie stayed true (eh, mostly) to the work of Dahl and captured his weirdness perfectly.

The dry one-liners in this movie are priceless.  George Clooney plays the voice of Mr. Fox, and the aforementioned Schwartzman plays his son, Ash.  Murray makes a cameo as his badger lawyer, and even Meryl Streep lends her voice as wife, Felicity Fox.  Everyone does a great job with the voices and I came away with a big smile on my face.

Overall, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that, in a word, Fantastic Mr. Fox was — fantastic.  I loved it, even thought it felt rushed and thrown together at times.  I’m definitely going to buy this movie, and I urge all of you to at least rent it and check it out for yourselves.  One of the best “animated” movies I’ve seen in a long time, and if it weren’t for the greatness that was Up, it would have won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Fantastic Mr. Fox was fantastically fantastic.  I loved it, and so will you.  Unless you don’t like it at all.  Then you probably won’t like it.

9 out of 10.