Given the annoyingly precious bent of Wes Anderson’s movies since, and maybe including, The Royal Tenenbaums, the notion of the director trying his hand at a kid-friendly stop-motion animated feature could’ve been — to borrow a phrase from a character in Fantastic Mr. Fox — “a total cluster-cuss for everybody.” (“Cuss” is Fox-speak for any word unfit for young ’uns.)
Instead, Fantastic Mr. Fox is not only Anderson’s most enjoyable effort since Rushmore, but his wisest take on the peculiar dynamics that somehow keep even the most seemingly dysfunctional families in working order.
Voiced with irrepressible bravado by George Clooney, the titular Mr. Fox is the latest in the director’s gallery of roguish patriarchs. Though he pledged to change his bird-stealing ways for the good of his missus (Meryl Streep) and son Ash (a wonderfully tormented Jason Schwartzman), he gets in back in touch with his wild side with disastrous results for every critter in his community.
If not quite on par with Henry Selick’s Coraline and the best of Aardman, the animation is consistently delightful, giving Roald Dahl’s tweedy Englishness a distinctly Gallic flair (a few old film themes by Georges Delerue fit nicely into the Beach Boys–heavy soundtrack). Likewise, the rapid-fire banter is witty enough to fill a thousand New Yorker “Shouts & Murmurs” columns yet not unduly directed over the heads of tykes. A far more successful union of hipster auteur and kid-lit source than Where the Wild Things Are, it also powerfully demonstrates the value of the right cravat.