The Fantastic Mr. Fox
PG for smoking and slang humor.
Running Time: 1 hour 27 minutes
Mr. and Mrs. Fox live an idyllic home life with their son Ash and visiting young nephew Kristopherson. But, after 12 years, their existence proves too much for Mr. Fox’s wild animal instincts. He slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in so doing, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community!
The Fantastic Mr. Fox is Wes Anderson’s first animated film, utilizing classic handmade stop motion techniques to tell the story of the best selling children’s book by Roald Dahl.
From The Author of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
Wes Anderson dips into the creativity of Roald Dahl, best known for his book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But, keep in mind, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Trapped underground, and with not enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight against the evil Farmers – Boggis, Bunce and Bean – who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost.
If anything, The Fantastic Mr. Fox might be a little more family-friendly than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The later movie tends to be a little over the top in some areas. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Gene Wilder film, or the Johnny Depp version of the flick, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has some pretty “out there” scenes in it. But, such is not the case with The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The family aspect of Dahl’s children’s books is a little harder to find in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, the importance of family and community comes through loud and clear in The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The film technique used in this animated movie is interesting.
While it’s not full animation, nor is it stop-animation, the slightly adapted clay-mation into the use of puppet-mation is fun to watch. I must admit I really don’t like stop-animation format. It seems jerky and flat. When it comes to clay-mation, no one does that better than the Wallace and Gromit creators. However, the use of puppets in Mr. Fantastic takes me back to my childhood memories of some of the early children’s TV shows. While the humans in the movie have more of an animation feel to them, there’s also a nice dimensional aspect to them without going into 3D.
As for those who lend their voices for work in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep plays a wonderful Mrs. Fox while George Clooney is his usual dapper self as Mr. Fox. It’s also nice to hear Bill Murray playing the fun role of Badger. While Clooney’s Mr. Fox is supposed to be the main character of flick, Meryl Streep’s Mrs. Fox subtly steals the screen time whenever she appears in a scene.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox carries a PG rating, and for that rating, this is a family-friendly movie. Clocking in at slightly less than an hour and a half, it’s just long enough to keep a young audiences attention, while it’s not too long to become really boring for the parents who take their kids to the flick. Keep in mind, this is a PG movie, not a G rated movie. While there’s nothing glaringly bad about the movie, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is not aimed at a really young audience. When all is said and done, there are some fun family and community lessons to be learned from the movie too. Things like keeping your promise, working together as a community, and not trying to live up to someone else’s expectations of who you should be, are all worthy topics of discussion with kids after watching the movie.
A Limited Release Movie!
While The Fantastic Mr. Fox was by no means a blockbuster for 2009, it is worth seeing if you have some extra time to pass. For it’s debut weekend it only hit four screens. It did however rank 24 on the box office list for that weekend in November. At it’s widest release Mr. Fox made it onto slightly more than 2,400 screens. With a production cost of $40 million, it will probably only make approximately $20 million during its big screen running. However, once it goes into DVD sales, it should at least break even.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox is not a strong movie. But, I must admit I chuckled throughout and do believe it’s a worthwhile children’s movie parents can use to help teach some great lessons.
Wait for the DVD!
Dr. Rus
Dr. Rus has 30+ years experience in the field of communication. He takes this experience, and his passion to encourage others to positively effect their environment, when providing insight and movie reviews. 
My 7yr.-old son read the story in class, which was a big hit – especially with the boys! He thorougly enjoyed the film adaptation as well, which was also a hit with the other generations of our family! See my son’s review of the film at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CUtY19hvIE