The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Blu-ray)

The Fantastic Mr. Fox ( Blu-ray )

Wes Anderson is definitely an extraordinary film maker, with 5 films under his belt he decided to tackle his first animated feature.  An adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but rather than go the traditional animated route by either doing hand drawn or CG animation; Anderson decided to make this film as a stop motion project.  With an all-star cast including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray, Wes Anderson put out the film on October to largely positive reviews and even earned an Academy Award Nomination in the “Best Animated Feature” category.  Well now it is on DVD/Blu-ray and we have your review.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox (Clooney & Streep) live a happy home life with their eccentric son (Jason Schwartzman) and visiting nephew Kristofferson.  That is until Mr. Fox slips into his sneaky old ways and plots the greatest heist on the three biggest farms in town.  So Mr. Fox and his associates get together and to pull off one last heist to support his family.

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in 1080p High Definition Mr. Fox is a beautiful film to look at, everything has an orange hue to it that tends to pop off the screen.  Each and every hair is visible, without a single bit of aliasing detected on the fringes.   This particular video presentation will delight fans and videophiles alike.  Like all of Fox’s blu-ray releases Mr. Fox sports a 5.1 DTS-Master Audio track though the track is fairly quiet and dialogue heavy, but there are a few moments that take full advantage of the surrounds.

There is one worthwhile special feature, the making of documentary that runs about 45 minutes and then there are a couple of short and lackluster featurettes, one that has Dahl’s widow and Anderson discussing the original inspiration for the film.  The other is an introduction to Whack Bat (the game that is played in gym class).

This is an animated film meant for adults. The video and audio presentations perfectly complement the film. While the special features are somewhat lacking, specifically no audio commentary, ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ on Blu-ray comes highly recommended.