Maroon Weekly

By Justin Baker

Fantastic Mr. Fox opened in limited release November 13, 2009. And, since Aggieland isn’t on the inclusive side of limited, B/CS-ers will have to wait until Thanksgiving to watch Wes Anderson’s adaption of Roald Dahl’s (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach) the all star cast of George Clooney, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Meryl Streep—and many, many others.

With Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson shifts from the quirky, vague The Royal Tenenbaums to a children’s tale. But, if you remember from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the tale isn’t aimed entirely at children nor is the material so light. Roald Dahl’s style can be quite aggressive and reflective of the natural impulses of the human spirit. And so, Wes Anderson as director/writer and Roald Dahl’s novel are quite a becoming pair.

Stop-motion animation is the style that the film takes, similar to the Gumby show and Rudolph the Reindeer film; it has a rich history in cinema (Wikipedia it) that grows deeper with time.

Already critically acclaimed (and already a great book, of course), Fantastic Mr. Fox is a film that is being released too late here. And although I can understand why independent films and so-called artsy films invoke limited release, Fantastic Mr. Fox deserves to be the exception to the rule, and at the very least, Premiere or Cinemark should step up to the plate of limited.