Fantastic Mr. Fox is a movie that’s been raved about on social media and from my friends, and yet I have not seen anything other than brief clips and commentary on the internet. I have had no real grasp of the plot and was under the impression that it was another run of the mill coming of age film.

When digging deeper into the background of the movie I saw some standout names such as Wes Anderson as a director and a writer, along with Noah Baumbach as a writer as well. Roald Dahl is also credited as a writer as this movie resulted from his book. The cast was also full of surprises as I saw George Clooney and Meryl Streep as part of the main cast, as well as other eye catching names like Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson in the supporting cast. This led me to become even more intrigued by the premise of this movie and I was excited for the day I would get to watch it.

When the movie first started I was abruptly startled by the stop-motion style. I am no stranger to stop-motion as it is one of my favorite stylistic choices, however Fantastic Mr. Fox utilizes this technique in such a unique way, and you can tell how much thought was put into each choice, particularly the object tracking.

Immediately after starting the film, the characterization of Mr. Fox was intriguing. We begin to see the background story given to him as Mr. Fox hen heckled (the act of stealing the hens and reselling them) in the past to get money, and we see him accidentally get himself and Mrs. Fox stuck in a fox trap. In the midst of the chaos surrounding them Mrs. Fox tells him that she’s pregnant and that hen heckling is too dangerous/reckless and that he must find a new job for this to work out, and ultimately leads to Mr. Fox getting a job as a newspaper columnist.

Right off the bat you can see topics, such as prioritizing the desire of money along with the near manipulative actions, being portrayed by him.

We see a conversation between Mr and Ms Fox about their money and living situation, that as a viewer feels like you’re intruding on an intense moment. Mrs. Fox says, “We are poor, but we are happy” in which Mr. Fox responds, “I don’t want to live in a hole anymore.”

We then see an interaction between Mr. Fox and his son, Ash, with him immediately commenting on Ash’s outfit, as he does not understand it. This begins the start of Ash’s character and label as ‘weird’ or as someone from his school called him, a “wet sandwich”.

The plot starts rolling as Ash’s cousin, Kristofferson, gets introduced. The dynamic between Mr. Fox and Ash immediately grows more tense as Mr. Fox starts seeing Kristofferson’s quality of character and achievements. We see Ash constantly fight for his dads attention using specifically his ‘athletic’ abilities. However we then see Kristofferson complete those same tasks significantly better, which catches the eye of Mr. Fox, which he then immediately acknowledges and celebrates.

This same idea gets carried throughout the movie and we see a great example outside of the family when Ash and Kristofferson are in their gym class. Ash is originally participating in the game “whack-bat”, which Mr. Fox is known at being good at, but ultimately gets switched out for Kristofferson; The gym teacher says, “[Kristofferson] really is your fathers nephew.”

The main plot a in this movie is that Mr. Fox wants to do one last grand plan. He goes back to his old way of living and brings people into stealing chickens, turkeys, and cider from three different places. This really took me by surprise as I was not expecting something involving so much action, and honestly I probably missed a bunch of details throughout the plot line. Given this I still managed to be entertained by each detail I did catch. Throughout this plot we get to see each character develop and the bonds between the amazing characters grow.

As the movie nears its end, we see the tense climax as Mr. Fox has to face the evaluation of himself. The three people he targeted get together to track down the common enemy: Mr. Fox. They all show up to his house to begin their attack. While this is occurring he and his family begin their attempted escape using their natural instincts, digging. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unscathed escape, as Mr. Fox lost his tail.

This leads to the eye opening conversation for Mr. Fox as everyone begins to acknowledge their circumstance; “In the end we all die if you don’t change” / “A lot of good animals are going to die because of you.”

The movie hits a turning point as relationships evolve. Ash and Kristofferson reach a mutual bond as they both partner up to take Mr. Fox’s tail back from the enemy. We also get to see a heartwarming example of acceptance of being different, and everything reaches full circle. When everyone is united after chaos Mrs. Fox says to Ash, “I know what it’s like to feel different” in which Ash responds “I’m not different, am i?”. While this isn’t a topic never done before, it’s very impactful as she responds, “We all are. [Mr. Fox] especially” … “But there’s something kind of fantastic about that.”

This movie was nothing like what I expected and took so many interesting ideas and themes and somehow managed to make a great masterpiece of a movie. The idea of being different and accepting that is no stranger to pieces of media, yet stands out significantly in this movie. I’m sure that every time I watch this movie I could find something new to focus on and analyze.

Despite only seeing this movie once, everything that went into this movie leads me to rate it a 9/10.