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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

EMAILPRINT20th Century Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox reviews
83
7.8 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Animation  |  Comedy

Written by: Wes Anderson
Noah Baumbach

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 13, 2009
DVD: March 23, 2010

Running Time: 87 minutes, Color

Origin: USA | UK

Summary

RATING: PG for action, smoking and slang humor

Starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, and Jarvis Cocker

Mr. and Mrs. Fox live an idyllic home life with their son Ash and visiting young nephew Kristopherson. But after 12 years, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr Fox’s wild animal instincts. Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community. Trapped underground and with not enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight against the evil Farmers - Boggis, Bunce and Bean - who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost. (20th Century Fox)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Village Voice Scott Foundas

For the reportedly painstaking labor it took to create, the film is a marvel to behold--with wonderful shifts in perspective, an intensely tactile design, and an intentional herky-jerkiness of motion that only enriches the make-believe atmosphere.

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100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

With its virtuoso tomfoolery, Fantastic Mr. Fox is like a homegrown Wallace and Gromit caper. To Wes Anderson: More, please!

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100

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Anderson has pulled off the most elusive of goals: He's made a nonchalant masterpiece, a movie that feels dog-eared and loved before it's even reached our hands.

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100

Slate Dana Stevens

You don't want to watch this movie, you want to climb inside it and play.

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100

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Witty and wonderful, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the perfect Thanksgiving entertainment.

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100

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The result is an instant classic. The material allows Anderson to neutralize the most irritating aspects of his work (the precociousness, the sense of white-bread privilege) and maximize the most endearing (the comic timing, the dollhouse ordering of invented worlds).

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90

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A pleasantly cerebral experience, exhilarating and fizzy, that goes to your head like too much Champagne.

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90

The New York Times A.O. Scott

In some ways his (Anderson) most fully realized and satisfying film. Once you adjust to its stop-and-start rhythms and its scruffy looks, you can appreciate its wit, its beauty and the sly gravity of its emotional undercurrents.

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90

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A captivating entertainment for the holiday season and well beyond.

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90

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Anderson has created a world as stylized and inventive as anything he's done... "Fox" is a visual delight.

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90

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Endlessly enchanting.

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89

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

This is an animated film that happily has room for both an existentialist dread of death and a grinning joie de vivre.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

These animals aren't catering to anyone in the audience. We get the feeling they're intensely leading their own lives without slowing down for ours.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

An adventure in pure imagination that plays to the smart kid in all of us.

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88

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Staff (Not credited)

Most of all, it’s a magical feat, one that turns puppets into personalities and an English meadow into Anderson’s world.

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88

Boston Globe Ty Burr

By forgoing actual human beings, the director has made his most charming, least annoyingly fey film - a thing of lovely comic wisdom.

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88

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A gorgeous and witty piece of stop-motion animation.

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83

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Has its pleasures, foremost being its look – a sophisticated puppet primitivism backdropped by near-psychedelic colorations.

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83

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

For all the ostensible immaturity of its form, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the most grown-up thing the director has done in years.

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80

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The result is a visual treasure that successfully blends deadpan quirkiness with a wry realism rarely seen in any film, let alone one for children.

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80

Empire Ian Nathan

Genuinely original: a silly, hilarious and oddly profound adaptation for adult-sized children.

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80

Variety Todd McCarthy

The film's style, paradoxically both precious and rough-hewn, positions this as the season's defiantly anti-CGI toon, and its retro charms will likely appeal more strongly to grown-ups than to moppets; it's a picture for people who would rather drive a 1953 Jaguar XK 120 than a new one.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

This is no more a kids’ movie for kids than "Where The Wild Things Are"; it’s a film strictly for Wes Anderson fans of all ages. By now, they should know who they are.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

It's an intriguing match of material and filmmaker. Dahl's distinctive, edgy storytelling seems to fit well with Anderson's idiosyncratic worldview and visuals.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

Anderson injects such charm and wit, such personality and nostalgia - evident in the old-school animation, storybook settings and pitch-perfect use of Burl Ives - that it's easy to forgive his self-conscious touches.

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75

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Fantastic Mr. Fox imparts lessons as profound as "The Road's" about love and gratitude and awareness of others. It just has more fun doing it.

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

If there's an argument against the film (and, admittedly, it's not much of an argument), it's that the movie may not be suitably childish to appeal to younger viewers.

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75

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Mr. Fox's old-fashioned, hand-crafted animation is one of its main attractions. Another is Anderson's whimsical, dry humor, a natural for this tale of a crafty, dapper fox.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The tale may be Dahl's, but there's a whole new wag to it – this is decidedly, weirdly and, at best, wonderfully a Wes Anderson movie.

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75

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

Even though it's right there in the title, "fantastic" might be a touch hyperbolic in describing director Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but only by a whisker.

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63

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

I’m flummoxed as to why the movie left me feeling up in the air, as opposed to over the moon. Partly, I think, it’s a matter of how Anderson’s sense of humor rubs up against that of the book’s author, Roald Dahl.

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60

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

It’s unfortunate that the result is so unaffecting, especially in light of all the things the director does right.

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20

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

The animals are often caught in a stare as if they, too, are looking for the tale that Anderson forgot.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 95 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kenneth S gave it a4:
I felt it was just an average film with average characters that didn't move me at all. I appreciated the stop-motion animation and the beautiful score, but the story was boring and rather tedious. It's not as witty or humorous as Roald Dahl's fantastic book.

Sandi C gave it a0:
This was the worst movie I have ever seen next to "Mountains of the Moon"...I was with a group of 8 of us, and not a single person including the kids had one thing good to say about it when if finally ended...boring, boring, boring, dumb!! I kept wanting to leave, but thought it had to get better...never did! It was 90 min. I'll never get back! Although it felt like days sitting there being annoyed! Can't figure out what the hype is all about because it was BAD!!

Tim D gave it a10:
This may have been the single most enjoyable movie of 2009. The visual style lends to an all pervasive sense of playfulness that never slips, even in more serious moments. The script is excellent and all the actors deliver their lines perfectly. There is not a film I saw this year I would recommend more readily.

ultra fatty gave it a0:
Quite simply the laziest and worst attempt at film making I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through.

Ryan F gave it a10:
Amazing movie, great cast, and just plain awesome. are all words i would use to describe this movie. with its great sense of humor, and perfect timing on all the jokes makes this one of my favorite movies ever.

Frank G gave it a0:
Unwatchable. Not funny for adults, dull for kids. There are no entertaining issues here, just a waste of talent. It isn't clear why this nostalgic amateurish animation technique was used, but it looks like a student film. Though it looks like critics were impressed by A-list talent working on this kind of movie, the big question for the rest of us is what cellular service they used to phone in these performances.

Seth B gave it a10:
Best film of '09. Saw it twice and will but it right wen it comes out on DVD. Its a witty, lovable film in a sea of unlikable crap to come out this year (transformers 2, G.I. Joe) No matter what genre it says, it is not a kids movie. They won't get most of the jokes that Wes put in. In fact, he had to add a censor word to replace what were originally swears(the word is Cus) He did this because it was based of a kids book so he had to make it kid friendly. If you haven't seen it yet, see it on DVD.

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