Fantastic Mr. Fox

If you see nothing else this month, see this movie. By Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbuams, Rushmore, etc), this movie is such a unique experience that words cannot justify it in some dumb blog review. It's not the best movie of the past few years, or some big breakthrough hit. It is just a wonderful, fun, witty story told through old school (yet with modern techniques perhaps) stop-go animation of a fox family who must overcome the evil tyranny of a trio of weird but entertaining farmers. The animals involved (including beavers, rats, and moles) all talk, and are personified with skills of high brow intellect, fast wit, humble musings and human like action that you forget you are watching a bunch of farm animals trying to fight THE MAN.

This is the interesting part which I will leave up to you to decide. Is it a film about chicken farmers and their conquest of the open plains? Is is a morality tale about the wild animal versus the more domesticated farm animal? (The best scene includes a lone wolf in the only scene which includes snow, a heartbreaking second of sentimentality). Is it a film about how George Clooney's voice will never be distinguished from any others in voice overs? Is it a movie about the cycle of life? You decide. It's like watching the Royals without having to deal with knowing the players. You can distinguish the voices (Meryl Streep, Jason Shwartzman, Bill Murray, etc.) but you aren't too distracted by them.
Give this movie about 15 minutes, then you may really like it. It was hard for me to get into at first, with an 8 month old and a 3 year old to get to bed, and I so hoped for extras on the film at the end (there are none that we could find- boo....)
Great entertainment, a very good, smart film for those who enjoy Anderson's style of prose. It's all dialogue, the action just follows along. In fact, the dialogue is so quick, I may have to watch it again- With zeal.

I would suggest, although an animated film, our youngest son watched for about 10 minutes and lost touch. It doesn't really speak to kids, more to adults. And hooray for that! Us adults need some crazy animated movie every now and then that doesn't speak "baby."