Like all other Wes Anderson movies, Fantastic Mr. Fox was entertaining, witty, and well thought out. The film had a decent streak of playfulness in its humor. And while Anderson catered more to adults than children, the movie nevertheless remained sufficiently childlike in its imagination to keep me interested and entertained. However, I found that I couldn’t love it like I loved his other movies, and surprisingly, I think it was because it was animated. Ironic, coming from someone who usually obsesses over all things animated!
I was sincerely awed by animation director Henry Selick’s work on Nightmare before Christmas and Coraline1. And according to Wikipedia, the same crew was employed for Corpse Bride was used for Fantastic Mr. Fox.2 So what happened here?
The source of my dislike was not located in the quality of the direction or the use of technology. The problem was two pronged; I did not like the overall aesthetic and I did not like the design of the characters themselves. The visual feel of Fantastic Mr. Fox is very similar to Anderson’s other movies, especially The Royal Tenenbaums.3 It’s sort of seventies, eclectic, and has lots of pinks, yellows, and browns. Unfortunately, whereas this aesthetic in Anderson's other films seemed unique and quirky, here it just made the whole thing look oddly cheap. Second, I didn’t like the design of the characters. The voice actors were highly expressive but the actual models they used for the foxes and other animals lacked life. They looked more like weird figurine toys than living characters. It is likely that this toy-like quality was intentional on Anderson’s part, but I just didn’t enjoy it very much.
Overall though these qualms with the animation were minor when compared to my overall enjoyment of the movie. Great dialogue, exciting story, and silly antics. In the end it was at least maybe a little bit fantastic indeed.
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1. To mention only a few. See his imdb profile for details.
2. Sorry, I’m not a grad student anymore. I can’t really be bothered to do actual research. Plus I have no access to an academic library.
3. One of my all time favorite movies ever. EVER.
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I totally second all of your points in this review.
ReplyDeleteOn paper, I really should have loved the animation of this film -- and on the bigger scale I did love it (the sets, the 70's colours, the scenography)! But the low-fi aesthetics just did not translate well into character expressions. The "minimal" look, when brought to close-ups of the characters (especially Mr. Fox) seemed unengaging and cold in comparison to the great voice-over work. I expect remoteness from photorealistic CGI films but not from puppet animation, so here the jerky undestatement of the faces seemed doubly unfitting. Perhaps it's because so much detail was put into audio and sets -- the puppets themselves didn't fit in anymore?
Also, I think BECAUSE this film was so similar to Royal Tenenbaums in a number of design and tone points, some of the charm and magic already seemed borrowed.
Finally, as a fan of Wes Anderson (especially Royal Tenenbaums), I have to admit that the "precious" use of music is becoming too heavy handed for me.
Are you cussin' with me?
ReplyDeleteAlla-- yes! I am glad we agreed on those points. I didn't notice the music so much but I think it was because I just tend to tune it out in Wes Anderson films. I'd rather listen to the soundtrack later because it's distracting to me to try to figure out the connection of the song to the story while I'm trying to watch the first time through.
ReplyDeleteBut then again I have mad skills at tuning out important things. Like the time I slept through about an hour of Hamid's class sitting up in my chair while we were supposed to be watching that one terrible movie about the history of Iranian cinema. A little /too/ good at tuning things out... :)