fantastic mr fox

Hmm.

I'm not quite sure what my final opinion is of Fantastic Mr Fox.

I should perhaps give a little background in that I was a big fan of Roald Dahl's children's book when I was young. I've never read any of his non-kids books and if I'm honest I only have fairly vague memories of the books I did read, but I do recall enjoying them a great deal.

My memory of the story of Fantastic Mr Fox was that the basic plot was of the fox in question as a master-thief who concentrated his efforts on three rather unpleasant farmers. These farmers then decide to kill him and end up trying to dig him out of his hole.

But Fox and his family dig themselves away from the farmers, who then set about besieging the hole. Meanwhile Fox discovers all the other animals are suffering to and eventually comes up with a plan that saves them all.

Now this story is basically there in film, but is embellished somewhat. This is not surprising, as the above story would make a better short feature than a full-length film. And I think, on balance, I liked and approved of the additions and tweaks.

The emphasis is changed a little, but not in a bad way, and the characters feel a lot more fleshed out and... well, grown up, and it's here I start to get a little uneasy.

See, the original book is for children. And this is an animated film (the stop-motion style really suits it and it works well) and, while being an animation fan I'm the first to argue that 'animation is not just for kids', I'm pretty sure this is aimed at a family audience.

At least I think it should have been - if you're adapting a children's book and using stop-motion, surely you're making a family film, right?

Except this doesn't feel like a kid's film. Now I don't mean that from the point of view of the story being too adult - while I do think it was grown up, I don't think any but the youngest of children would fail to follow the plot, although perhaps some of the themes are more suited to older kids. No, the problem is with the style.

And it's also here I run up against a bit of a problem, because it's a little difficult for me to explain.

You know how comedy often has labels you can apply? Slapstick is a good example. If a film is a slapstick then you know it's going to be full of physical comedy. Well, this film falls into a particular comedy style, but I haven't a clue what the label is.

Basically, it's a kind of knowing, ironic style, where jokes are delivered as asides, rather than proper gags. I'm tempted to say it's reminiscent of Woody Allen's stuff, but that's not quite it. As I say, difficult to describe, but my point is that it's not something I would associate with a children's film. It feels more like a film aimed at an older audience.

And that was why I was left unsure - was it a kid's film or not? I liked it, but it seemed like an odd adaptation.