Fantastic Mr. Fox

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" is quirky, endearing, hand-crafted and fun. In other words, it's a Wes Anderson film. For the kids.

Mr. Fox joins a long line of dreamers in Anderson's films, from Dignan to Max Fischer to Royal Tanenbaum. These characters inevitably see their ambitions derailed, but they never lose heart.

As in Roald Dahl's novel, Mr. Fox is a master farm thief. He's forced into the safer field of journalism when he starts a family, but his mischievous itch remains. With the help of a delightfully inept possum, he tries to plunder from three neighboring farms for old times' sake.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Wes Anderson film without father issues. The director has added a subplot involving Ash, Mr. Fox's son, and Kristofferson, a visiting cousin. Kristofferson is physically and intellectually superior to Ash in every conceivable way, so much so that Mr. Fox is too dazzled not to show his preference. This conflict fills out the story but adds little else.

Nonetheless, there are some excellent sequences and jokes to be enjoyed here. Mr. Fox's capers have breathed new life into Anderson's old bag of tricks. After the career nadir of "Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," Anderson has rebounded nicely by going outside his comfort zone with a road movie set in India ("Darjeeling Limited") and the animated "Mr. Fox." Anderson's conventions are well known to us by now. It would seem his challenge is to find new formats to invigorate his familiar sensibility.