# The Fantastic Mr. Fox (animated film) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 29, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296 "2009-11-29T01:59:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/21 "2009-12-15T08:11:22Z")
☹ Man, how can anybody not like **The Royal Tenenbaums**? It gets better and better every time I see it. > [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I liked it but I came away wondering who it was made for Does it matter? Why does everything have to be “made for” somebody in particular? A lot of good movies that die at the box office would have a better chance if more people had more open minds regarding what “genres” they should be going to see. Maybe I’m weird because I have VERY eclectic taste in movies (the other day I saw **The Princess and the Frog** , **Up In The Air** AND **Invictus** , and enjoyed all three movies very much), but still… I’m glad you liked it though. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/22 "2009-12-15T08:17:30Z")
I’m seeing it again for sure. The more I think about it in hindsight, the more I think it was actually a great movie. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/23 "2009-12-15T22:09:55Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Did anyone else catch the love theme from _Robin Hood?_ I did! I thought that was pretty nifty. And I really liked the movie. I like Wes Anderson films in general, but this one was different enough that while I was watching it I temporarily forgot it was one of his films. I too thought the “cuss” thing was very clever. It was censorship, but it sounded like it was making fun of censorship at the same time. Another detail I enjoyed: the small moments of “wild animal” behavior (tearing into food, the digging, Mr. Fox and Mr. Badger’s snarling and growling) despite the heavy anthropomorphism. I tend to prefer it when animals aren’t highly anthropomorphized in books or film (a la _Watership Down_), but in this movie they actually managed to make it work. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/24 "2009-12-15T22:17:45Z")
I brought this up briefly in the other thread, but another thing I liked about it was that it seemed so affectionately inspired by one of the greatest stop-motion films ever: Wladyslaw Starewicz’s wonderful _The Tale of the Fox_. YouTube has the whole thing on their site; [here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz0wAD1o0gs) Part I. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/25 "2009-12-16T05:35:30Z")
And the wolf at the end was very cool and mysterious and slightly creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/26 "2009-12-16T23:55:13Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Oh good. Generally when people complain about a movie being too ironic and witty, that means I’ll love it. I love the quirky shit. I suppose you hated _I Heart Huckabees_ too I liked Huckabees and I certainly liked Mr Fox. It had a gentle charm about it. My little girl (4 years old) loved it too. I thought it might lack the “vulgarity and vitality” (as IIRC one reviewer put it) of a CGI film, but she went nuts over it. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/27 "2009-12-17T05:11:21Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I really like the fact that they had the [love theme](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViQS_g6lgpA) from _Disney’s Robin Hood_ in the background during one of the early scenes. That was a great little nod to the classic film and a bit of nostalgia for those who grew up watching it. It may go without saying, but Disney’s _Robin Hood_ was a love story between two foxes, which made the inclusion that much more charming. Also, while the film has received its share of year-end Best Animated Film awards (though not as many as _Up_), it has also received two awards for Best Adapted Screenplay! Here’s hoping the Writers Guild and Academy follows suit… ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296/28 "2010-11-07T02:36:25Z")
A bump for a voice of dissent. I was really reluctant to see it, having soured on Wes Anderson (really, dude, how many movies can you make about privileged, self-absorbed white guys who go around feeling sorry for themselves?) But finally I rented it, because my wife had been wanting to see it, and because it’s gotten such universally positive reviews. I freakin hated it. The book is practically mythic, and i don’t mean that like **epic** , I mean it like Joseph Campbell would be comfortable writing about the trickster icon in it. It’s a lovely Dahlian work, full of nasty characters getting their comeuppance from a sly hero. But Anderson hasn’t yet finished examining the travails of middle-class men, this time a middle-class man who feels trapped by an emasculating middle-class wife. So he takes the trickster character and bourgeoisifies him into a sad shadow of a trickster. Throw in a pouty teenaged son, jokes about flipping houses, and a horrifying ending (the animals in the book have turned natural burrows into an underground town; in the movie they’re forced to move into the sewers and eat fake canned giblets from a supermarket, yet more middleclassification of the wild animals), and you’ve got something I found totally appalling. Sure, the art was good, and absolutely the movie had some fine moments. Anderson is, after all, an excellent movie-maker. I just wish he’d put his powerful talent in the service of less revolting stories. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fantastic-mr-fox-animated-film/519296.md?page=1)