Of all the great Wes Anderson movies, and there quite a few, I've always a real fondness for "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," a stop-motion animation treat from 2009 that was the most formally realized picture of his career. So it is with great joy that I see that there's another film of his that will be in stop motion animation form: "Isle of Dogs." If that wasn't enough he has amassed another fantastic cast to take part in this adventure. Earlier this year, Anderson had mentioned that the film was “less influenced by stop-motion movies than it is by Akira Kurosawa.” The full cast includes Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Kunichi Nomura, Harvey Keitel, Akira Ito, Akira Takayama, Koyu Rankin, Yoko Ono (!), Courtney B. Vance (!), Greta Gerwig (!!!), Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban and Liev Schreiber "Isle of Dogs" comes out on April 20th, 2018. Is it a coincidence that this is coming out on 4/20?
The reviews thus far are fairly good, this isn't Fantastic Mr. Fox-level raves but we'll take it, especially since Anderson tends to release a film every 4 years these days so this is surely a celebratory moment for any cinephile right now.
“Isle of Dogs is really a film about its own enthusiasms: for four-legged fleabags of all shapes and sizes, of course, but also for the culture and cinema of Japan, which is woven with typical fastidiousness into Anderson’s magpie aesthetic. That makes it a markedly more eccentric proposition than Anderson’s first feature-length foray into stop-motion, 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox — and with a PG-13 rating for its dry adult comedy, mostly played in a limbo-low key, a niche commercial prospect too. The Anderson faithful will be tickled pink as a newborn pup, as will voters for year-end animation awards; the palpable spirit of affection driving proceedings, meanwhile, will have to be the film’s chief defense against charges of cultural appropriation.” Guy Lodge, Variety.
“An even wilder, more distinctive experience” than Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox, buttressed by a “thoroughly captivating tale of a 12-year-old Japanese boy’s quest to rescue his beloved pet, and indeed an entire outcast canine population, from the genocidal scheme of a crooked mayoral regime…the Fox Searchlight March release has cult potential stamped all over it. For those who choose to see this in conventional family-film terms, Anderson might perhaps be accused of overplotting, layering complication upon complication in a story that’s basically a classic hero’s journey, with multiple plucky sidekicks. But the unique charm of Isle of Dogs is its bottomless vault of curios, its sly humor, playful graphic inserts and dexterous narrative detours.” - David Rooney, THR.