Voices: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wally Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker
Running time: 87 mins
Rating: ★★★★

ON the face of it, a children’s book by Roald Dahl filmed in stop motion animation seems an odd thing to be coming from the director of such adult comedies as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited.

But, as director Wes Anderson has pointed out himself, he made this film pretty much as he would one with flesh and blood actors rather than a picture featuring foxes, badgers and chickens.

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Which means that Fantastic Mr Fox is truly that elusive cinematic offering – a film for all the family that neither talks down to children nor ignores the needs of the adults. Mr Fox can’t help being anything but fantastic considering the A-list array of voice talent – led by a perfectly cast George Clooney as a suave and sexy chicken thief – that’s pretty perfect.

The stop motion animation, as in Wallace and Gromit movies, lends the film a slightly jerky oldfashioned look that gives it the edge over some of the as-goodas- real-life representations in other animated features.

Debonair Mr Fox (Clooney) has given up his chicken-thieving ways for domestic bliss with Mrs Fox (Meryl Streep), their superhero-obsessed son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and visiting young nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson).

But the quiet country life becomes too much for Mr Fox as his animal instincts come to the fore again. It appears that once a chicken thief, always a chicken thief.

His mistake is robbing his neighbours, a trio of unsavoury farmers going by the name of Boggin, Bunch and Bean (Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe).

They determine to capture the pesky fox at any cost, ready to drive him – along with his family and friends – out of their underground homes using diggers, bulldozers and flooding the tunnels. The fight is on for Mr Fox, who needs to call upon all his resourcefulness to defeat the farming foe.

Clooney inhabits his fox’s skin to the manner born, even if he is American accented like the rest of the animals in the English countryside. As usual, Hollywood has cast the Brits as the bad guys.