I'll tell you why so serious

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I wanted to like this way more than I did as I love Wes Anderson. The animation is beautiful but the dialogue is so smug and annoying it makes it hard to get into. The original story is charming enough without references to stuff that kids don't understand. Kids won't get anything out of the film at all, which is silly as it's based on a kids book.

Out of the many books by children's authors that are adapted to film, the books by Roald Dahl mostly tend to be excellent. Save for Tim Burton's disastrous retelling of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", I have really enjoyed the movies made based on Dahl's books. Now we have another movie that I can happily say is yet another great adaptation. "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is the debut animated movie from famed director Wes Anderson and he was able to craft a movie that can successfully do some elements differently from the book while also adding touches to make the movie memorable. I'll explain why this really works out well.Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his wife Felicity (Meryl Streep) have given up the life of raiding farms after their only son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman). Mr. Fox is now a newspaper columnist and has now moved the family from a burrow to a tree nearby three farms run by three dangerous farmers named Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon). Wanting to conduct one last raid, Mr. Fox, his assistant possum Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky) and his nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) steals items from all three farms much to the farmers and Felicity's anger. Wanting to kill the fox, the farmers come along and try to dig the foxes out of their tree only to discover that the foxes keep digging away from the danger. After having led to the destructions of their home and the homes of other critters, Mr. Fox decides to declare war on the farmers in order to fight for their survival.The thing that I really enjoyed about this movie was the script. The script in this movie written by Anderson and director Noah Baumbach was smartly written as well as very funny. Though the movie can be viewed by kids, I think adults well enjoy the movie more mainly due to how adult the film is. The characters talk like people in other movies minus the swear words which Anderson and Schwartzman simply replace with the word "cuss". As an example, the character would say something like "The cuss you would," or "That was the craziest cussing thing I've ever done." You might think it would get old fast, but it actually doesn't. I also like how the story can be both faithful and different to the book at the same time. Elements to the story are added, particularly the relationship between Mr. Fox and Felicity and I personally think it's needed to advance the story along and give the characters some depth. As for the animation, it's brilliantly crafted. It's done entirely in stop motion animation without any digital help which I found very impressive. It also included some of Anderson's style into the film as well like the camera angles being mostly centered. I also really enjoyed the characters in the movie. Where in the book they are likable though don't have a lot of personality, here they are given tons of personality and charisma to boast. Even a subplot involving a feud between Ash and Kristofferson which I thought would be the weakest part of the movie was actually really well realized and written. As far as flaws goes, the character designs of the humans did bother me at times due to how odd they were, though they were not too bad to be distracting."Fantastic Mr. Fox" is a very smart movie with a well written story, some impressive animation and characters with lots of personality and charm to boast. Considering that this is the first animated film from Wes Anderson, I'm really impressed by how much detailed elements went into this film. I'm very eager to see if he continues to make stop-motion movies because I feel he can reach the heights of the people at Aardman and Henry Selick. We'll just have to wait and see.

Looking at the front cover of the bluray, it looked to be cute, fun and super child friendly. It's fun, definitely. Cute? Sure. Super child friendly? No no no. Yes children can watch it but the screenplay was absolutely genius, they just wouldn't appreciate it. This was hilarious. Me laughing on multiple occasions is a rare achievement for any film, trust Wes Anderson and his quirky quirkiness to win me over. This is easily one of his strongest films, both in script and technical direction. His style is so unique and inventive that it's hard not to admire it. His centralisation of characters or objects in shots are just innovative, forcing the audience to become absorbed with what's on screen. Plenty of direct address to entice the viewer which I'm sure the younger audience will appreciate. But this screenplay. Genius. Masterful. Quotable. So many nice touches like substituting curse words with the word "cuss". Might go over children, but damn it made me laugh. "What a cluster-cuss". Ha! Only Anderson could pull that off in an animation. Every character had a unique and creative personality. Mr Fox was sly and suave, his son Ash was eccentric, nephew Kristofferson was perfect in every way, heck even Mrs Fox had some personality...she's a fully independent woman *click fingers in zig zag formation*. The voice casting choices were spot on. Clooney has that suave voice that suited Mr Fox, Streep has the power behind her voice for Mrs Fox. Schwartzman was the stand out, his line execution ensured laughter from viewers...so good! The only criticism I have is the soundtrack, some of the songs just didn't work for me and I think an original score would've suited the animation better. Oh, the stop motion work was tremendous. It's a dying art, so I can fully appreciate the time spent on a project like this. Overall, this took me by surprise. Honestly. I think older viewers will actually find more enjoyment due to the adventurous script. Can't wait to watch it again.

God, this film's phenomenal. The weirdest interpretation of a Roald Dahl book I've ever seen (yes, including Gene Wilder's Tunnel of Horror in Willy Wonka), but nevertheless phenomenal. The soundtrack's fantastic, the jokes are great, the story is bizarrely touching, and all in all I just absolutely love Fantastic Mr. Fox.