All Articles by Thomas Bush

Arts

FILM REVIEW - Fantastic Mr Fox

Roald Dahl's classic finally brought to the big screen

Slowly, it seems that childhood is slipping away from me. The past few years have seen film adaptations (various in quality) of many key elements of my youth. Transformers became the ‘box office smash’ of the summer, and everyone's favourite picture book Where The Wild Things Are looks set to sweep up the Christmas market. Fantastic Mr Fox, Wes Anderson's adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic, feels like the latest attack in an organised assault upon our generation’s nostalgia.

Fantastic Mr Fox was the first book I learnt to read; I strongly remember listening to the story on tape, narrated by the brilliant Lionel Jeffries. As such, I approached the cinema knowing that my fond memories of the story would, in all likeliness, be trampled on - if not killed, plucked and eaten for dinner. It was with difficulty, then, that I watched the film, trying hard to divorce my memories from what was presented to me.

Visually, the film is refreshingly different; the use of stop-motion puppetry in lieu of the ever-present CGI is definitely a breath of fresh air, and… Continue reading...