'The Fantastic Mr. Fox'

'The Fantastic Mr. Fox' (PG) ***

Writers: Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson based on book by Roald Dahl
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Michael Bambon, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe

"The Fantastic Mr. Fox" is quite a visual experience that is unique and yes a little trippy. It is a great film to just watch as chaos and a hypnotic beauty spring from every corner of the screen. This is a very fast, busy film that you have to pay attention to because there is a lot going on. It is a fun film to also listen to for I liked it's screwball dialogue and if you don't pay attention you might miss some key, funny dialogue. Therein lies a problem I have with the movie and that is it might be too damn fast and clever for it's own good sometimes. Is that a bad thing? When most kids movies are dumb, slow or dim witted this movie is a feat of imagination. It is based on something solid by a great, imaginative children's author in Roald Dahl. Now I had a lot of fun in this movie but somehow I didn't embrace it as much as I thought I would. I think it needed to slow down just a little so I could catch my breath. It is along the same type of groundbreaking animation like say a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" but the story execution is somewhat weaker. That being said this movie is still worth seeing and on a second viewing I might grow to love it. This is a movie I think needs to be seen twice and I would love to revisit it on DVD. I think a lot of this material will go over very little kid's heads but there are wonderful visuals that will get their eyes to pop out of their heads. Older kids will love it I think. I could see it being played on college campuses at midnight also. Take a few drugs, though I don't condone this, and you can have quite a head trip. You can also have drinking parties as say every time a character says cuss you take a drink. I love how every swear word is replaced by cuss as in "What the Cuss" as this is a brilliant touch in a very clever movie. The voice work is very good as Clooney and Schwartzman are perfectly cast. The movie has some classic lines of dialogue and is beautiful to look at but maybe Wes Anderson needs to slow it down and lay off a little of the hip quotient. This might get better on a second viewing as is this week's "The Road" and I would rather have that desire to have a movie that wants me to watch it again to see if I missed something rather than be bored and hating myself for seeing it. With "Where The Wild Things Are" there is hope for children's movies now that also adults will appreciate.