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Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

★★½ — Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Roald Dahl's 1970 children's novel had been a modest publishing favourite for decades before Wes Anderson brought it to the screen as his first animated feature, shooting primarily in England using traditional stop-motion puppetry rather than the CGI that dominated family animation at the time. Anderson had already established his particular brand of fastidiously composed, deadpan-comic filmmaking across five live-action pictures (from Bottle Rocket through The Darjeeling Limited), and the Dahl adaptation arrived in a period when stop-motion was enjoying something of a quiet revival, following the success of Aardman's work in Britain. Produced partly through Anderson's own American Empirical Pictures shingle, the film had a relatively modest $40 million budget by studio animation standards, and its box office return of around $46 million made it a marginal performer commercially.

I get it, I really do. Everyone loves Wes Anderson’s quirky stop-motion charm, the all-star voice cast, the unique visuals and yeah, it’s all very… styled. But for me? It just didn’t land. I just find it all a bit flat. Even my fox-obsessed kid barely looked up from toys. The dialogue is dry, the pacing is deliberate to a fault, and the humor feels like it’s aimed at adults who like mild, witty understatement, which is fine, but not exactly thrilling for its supposed family audience. It’s well-made, no doubt. But under all the style and acclaim? It’s just an average kids’ film, and not even a particularly engaging one for actual kids.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2009 | Watched: 2025-07-20

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Physical: Amazon UK

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