Fantastic Mr. Fox

I don't believe I've seen a stop motion film since the last time I was able to catch Wallace and Gromit on TV. Big studios tend to shy away from the ancient form of stop motion and pump their dollars into things like Pixar and Dreamwork Animation (aka the kid down the street from Pixar who is way jealous because Pixar is ten times more awesome than he is and stole his girlfriend.) Stop motion is a lost art to be sure. So when I heard there was a film coming out using stop motion, naturally I had to check it out.

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" stars some guy by the name of George Clooney, and some woman by the name of Meryl Streep, and some other guy named Bill Murray. All pretty no-name actors. I certainly have never heard of them. Mr. Fox is a professional bird hunter. He breaks into farms and steals whatever things a fox might enjoy from the farmers' storehouses. Unfortunately, because his wife gets pregnant, he promises to give up his dangerous life and become a newspaper correspondent.

If that sounds like a boring life, it's because it is. Mr. Fox can't stand it and if you want a decent plot, everyone knew the director couldn't stand it either. He decides to get back into the game and plan one huge raid on the three farms in the area. But Fox robs from the wrong men. The farmers get kinda peeved that animals are taking their food and start destroying the entire countryside, attempting to kill Fox and his friends. Fox has to figure out a way to stop the farmers and save his nephew that is being held captive by them.

Fantastic? eh, no. Weird? most definitley. This is an odd tale. Amusing, with incredible voicework, but not much substance. It wasn't as funny as it could have been, and replacing the F-word with cuss "are you cussing with me right now?" is only funny the first few times. Not if it's used for every other line. The movie is just an odd film. Nothing special, except for maybe the animation, and certainly nothing new.

Grade: 2 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell