Fantastic Mr. Fox is the latest film by Wes Anderson, and if you're any fan of ours you're probably aware we, well, love him.  So I tried to enter this film with an open and critical mind, and try to not love it just because Wes Anderson made it.  I'm sorry, but like all of his films, the Fantastic Mr. Fox is charming, beautiful, and absolutely lovable.

It's a story about a fox who gives up his theiving ways to settle down and start a family.  But he's a fox, and soon enough he's tempted to steal again when presented with an exciting heist.  Unfortunately his deviation brings trouble to the entire "underground."

In my opinion, Wes Anderson is a master at creating characters that are not only unique, but that have unbelievable depth.  He's skilled at subtlety and extremely detailed in his presentation of both character and scene.  I imagine his more obsessive qualities were in over-drive for a piece of animation like this, and as a result everything looked absolutely stunning.  He's also quite creative and his clever use of the word "cuss" became pretty hilarious.

The voice acting was all excellent and the emotion conveyed through the characters was very real.  A favorite scene occurred when Ash feels bad that Kristofferson is crying so he climbs down, turns on the train set, and they both sit quietly watching it run.  Very few films these days seem to believe a quiet scene like that can truly impact the audience.

So How Does It End?

After much back and forth success between the underground animals and the farmers above, the animals are eventually trapped into beginning a new live in the sewers.  Fortunately Mr. Fox discovers they are directly beneath the supermarket.  The supermarket is of course run by Mr. Fox's enemy farmers.  So you can safely assume the animals win.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is immensely enjoyable.  I give it 5 out of 5.