The Fantastic Mr. Fox

I have not seen a film this handmade, this plugged-in to its director's imagination, since Wallace & Gromit. The Fantastic Mr. Fox seems fed directly from Wes Anderson's brain onto the screen, without losing a beat, a gesture, or a hair. The most minute detail seems manipulated for our pleasure. This is the most lavish, expensive, celebrity-voiced kid's movie made by a kid that I have ever seen (even more so than Where the Wild Things Are), and it delivers the same kind of joy that Henry Selick delivers and that Pixar delivers.

Based on the children's story by Roald Dahl, that subversive storyteller of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is about a bunch of woodland creatures out to rob three neighboring farmers of their livestock, their booze, and their stature in the community. Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is a wiley scoundrel who used to make a living stealing chickens until he succumbed to family life, and is now a newspaper columnist. The film begins with Clooney and his wife, Mrs. Fox (voiced by Meryl Streep) getting caught red handed stealing chickens. Mr. Fox makes a promise that if they make it out alive, he will cease his criminal ways.

Cut to the present, in which Mr. and Mrs. Fox have a child, bills, and a new home in a tree on the property of three ruthless, idiosyncratic farmers. Mr. Fox, itching to escape the boredom of everyday life, devises a plan, with the help of a janitor named Kylie (voiced by Simpsons producer Wally Wolodarsky), to return to his criminal ways.

I'll stop right there. I haven't even mentioned the details of their son, Ash, and his competition with his live-in cousin, Kristofferson, and the problems that arise from this. Let me just say that Mr. Fox, and everyone else, seems inclined to believe Kristofferson capable of anything, and Ash capable of little or nothing. Anderson generates a lot of laughs from this subplot, but also uses it as the gist for Mr. Fox's growth.

What The Fantastic Mr. Fox really has to offer, though, is pure eye candy in its unpolished, flawed animation. Anymore, I am more thoroughly entertained by films where I can see the wizard behind the curtain, and Mr. Fox is all that. Anderson doesn't shy away from his usual straight-on close-ups of characters speaking directly into the camera, and here you can see every hair move, every twitch and sneer. It doesn't reflect reality, it reflects hand craftsmanship the way those old Rankin/Bass Rudolph and Frosty cartoons did. You can see the filmmakers at play, creating every detail individually, not relying on digital effects to smooth it over in post-production.

Also, being a Wes Anderson movie, you get intellectual dialogue delivered rapid-fire, as when Coach Skip (voiced by Anderson regular Owen Wilson) explains the absurdly complex rules to a game called Whackbat, which is something akin to cricket meshed with interpretive dance. It gets such a big laugh, you almost want to go out and play it.

I don't want to spoil the shenanigans, but let me just say that Mr. Fox gets the whole woodland community up to its neck in water, dirt, and apple cider; There are heists, close calls with rabid dogs, blueberries, a sock used as a burglar mask, severed tails used as ties, an alcoholic weasel, and lots of explosions and digging. It is thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. A one of a kind achievement by an idiosyncratic filmmaker who has managed to make big films with big stars his way, without compromise.

The film's only drawback is that it moves along so quickly, you might miss something and have to see it again, which is my recommendation anyway. This is one of the year's best.