Fantastic mr fox review

Just recently I have rewatched fantastic Mr Fox’ a stop motion animated film by Wes Anderson, based on the book by the same name by Roald Dahl, I watched this movie all the way back in 2020 and I think this was the first film I watched during the beginning of the pandemic, and now that I have rewatched during the screening of it in Creative Stirling I am now doing a review of it here so now let’s begin.

The plot is a retired bird stealer fox named Mr Fox comes out of retirement of to steal from 3 mean nasty farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, but when he does the 3 farmers go after him and his family for revenge, Mr fox has to save his family, the rest of the animals in his valley and himself from certain doom, this is honestly a great plot for a kids film and while it has differences from Roald Dahl original book it still stays true to it while Wes Anderson gives it his own style to the story, I just love the autumn feel of this movie and it fits well in this world.

The stop motion is incredible; it gives off a style of stop motion that feels fluid, and the character models are also really great. You can see the fur moving, and it doesn’t feel like an error for the animation, as it fits so well and is not as cartoony as Aardman or Laika stop motion.

The characters are all well defined and have different personalities to them’ Mr Fox is very determined and cunning but that doesn’t make unlikable in anyway as he just wants to go back to the glory days and wants too provided for his family, voiced by George Clooney he gives of a amazing depiction of Mr Fox, and when ever I see the original book I will now always hear his voice coming out of Mr Fox he’s well Fantastic, his partner in crime Kylie the possum who was a fun sidekick (who wasn’t in the original book) Kylie is very loyal to Mr Fox and great companion overall, Mrs fox is the voice of reason and is always making sure Mr Fox is on the right track, Ash is Mr Fox’s son and his quite in the other characters words “different” and is a bit of a outcasted by his family who more impressed his cousin Kristofferson, who is in my opinion is the perfect Ash who Ash wishes he can be but sadly can’t. Also, Kristofferson is also not from the book, really showing this movie just went off and did its own thing.

Boggis, Bunce, and Bean were good trio villains and their determination to get one fox and wipe out his entire home to get him, while Bean just does most of the talking and the one that uses Mr Fox’s tail as a neck tie’ he is great antagonist and like what Mr badger says he is possibly the scariest man currently living.

There is are whole bunch of other great characters that I just generally liked in this, like Mr Badger, who is Mr Fox's lawyer, voiced by Bill Murray. Agnas a the freckled fox, who has a crush on Kristofferson, and the best side character in the movie Rat, played by the legend himself, Willem Dafoe, who meets quite a tragic end after his fight with Mr Fox. So yeah, all the characters are all interesting in their own way, which makes the film work really well, but now I want to talk about my favourite scene in the movie, which was quite near the end of the movie, and that is.

The wolf scene

After saving Ash, Mr Fox stumbles upon a lone wolf staring at him from a distance. Now we know, earlier in the movie, Mr Fox has a phobia of wolves, so Mr Fox tries to make contact with the wolf, but after trying to make conversation with no success, Mr Fox puts his fist in the air with the wolf doing the same, what I love form this scene as its somewhat symbolic in a way and what I feel about it is Mr Fox has finally come to peace with who he truly is and that’s a wild animal, he and some the other animals in this movie acts like humans but they’re not they are just animals in clothes, and in some scenes in the film Mr Fox blames his issues on him saying (I’m a wild animal I can’t help it ) which makes it sound like it isn’t his fault. Which no, it’s totally his fault this event happened, but what I think is: that it’s just what nature intended. Wild animals like him need to survive because If you think about it, animals have lives too, and  I believe that in this scene Mr Fox comes to terms with both while overcoming his fear.

While that's just what I felt like while watching this scene, you can have your opinion about this scene, or what do you think it represents? It’s an incredible scene, and the model they used for the wolf was so good and definitely fit the tone of the scene.

So at the end of the movie, everything has calmed down, while they are still being hunted by Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, also some say Boggis, Bunce and Bean are still waiting at the manhole for Mr Fox to appear again till this very day, all the wild animals are happy, alive and are still moving forward in life and making the most of it. And to quote Mr Fox, by the end, to our Survival.

So that was Fantastic Mr Fox, and it's still an amazing film. I still remember watching it over and over again back during the days when the pandemic was happening, and it is just how I remembered. So we are hopefully going to have a film screening this week on the Pixar film Wall-E, so come along to that on August 6th. So go book your tickets on creativestirling.org. Until then, see you soon

For me, Fantastic Mr Fox is a 10/10

Jamie.