Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox
By Hunter Stephenson/Nov. 26, 2009 11:20 am EST
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I remember seeing Peach, desperately wanting to like (and not just appreciate) its painstaking animation. But ultimately it took months to shrug off my disappointment. (That Henry Selick had a surprise, stop-motion hit with Coraline this year should be noted, but will not be discussed further herein.) I was let down by how Peach seemed preoccupied with the mechanics of stop motion as to soak up most of the delicious wit and tongue-dripping imagery swimming in Roald Dahl’s words. Leading up to the release of Fox, those feelings resurfaced.
And so did the overwhelming memories I have of reading Dahl’s novel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, for the first time. It was the first book to literally make my mouth water, so irresistible were Dahl’s endless, corrupted-epicurean descriptions of stolen and devoured fowl by the titular character. He wrote like a man possessed by hilarious, vicarious pleasure in having young boys secretly rediscover (or, I imagine, if read within an overtly religious household, discover) a primal bond by way of the carnivorous pillaging of a sly fox.
“Oh my cuss.”
As I compile my best films of 2009, I do dig Pixar and think Up is one of their best, but deep inside, I feel a much more urgent and profound connection to Fantastic Mr. Fox. It’s not simply a matter of preference for eye candy or personal taste, either. Or a seasonal bias. This aging and overpowering notion in pop-culture and the marketplace that computer animation rules all and is the best way to get moviegoers’ and families’ asses in seats ignores something vital: the love humans will forever have for seeing artists get their hands dirty in a literal sense.
Hunter Stephenson can be reached at h.attila/gmail and on Twitter.
