Movie Review: Fantastic Mr Fox

The movie is about a Fox that is named Mr Fox, the fox has human qualities. He is a family man and can do anything to ensure that his loved ones are safe and secured. In the movie we have Mr Fox (protagonist) his wife Mrs Fox, their one and only child Ash and the three farmers who are portrayed as antagonist, Boggis (chicken farmer), Bean (turkey-and-apple farmer) and Bunce (duck and goose farmer). It all start when Mr fox and his family move-in in their new home that was located not so far from the three farmers’ farms. The tension in the movie arouse when the farmers realised that Mr Fox is stealing from them and that is when they decided to take matters into their own hands in order to make Mr fox pay for his crimes.

In the movie, Mr Fox starts as a bird stealer, but later becomes a newspaper man. In the movie he does not have a job and bird stealing is not mentioned. In the movie Mrs Fox does not like the idea of Mr Fox stealing as she knows that it is dangerous, but in the book she supports him and even tells him what to bring. In the movie they only have one child named Ash, but in the book they have three children.  Badger and Mr Fox do not like each other in the movie, but are good friends in the book. All the animals have jobs /professions in the movie, but just ordinary animals in the book. Boggis eats 12 chicken in total in the movie, but only eats 9 in the book the family is visited by Kristofferson in the movie, but they don’t get any visitors in the book. In the movie they first live in a hole before moving to a tree house, but in the book they just live in a hole. In the movie, Mr Fox is assisted by Kylie when he steals from the farmers, but in the book he steals on his own. When they were digging while trying to run away from the digging farmers, Mrs Fox is assisting in the movie, but in the book only Mr Fox and the children dig as she is not feeling well. The movie is an effective adaptation of the book, even though there were few differences here and there but yet it still maintained and presented the interpretation of Dahl’s classic.

I really liked the movie because it shows a different side of males. Normally in societies, women/mothers are the ones who have to fend for their children and find food for them, but in the book Mr Fox is working hard to provide for his family. This shows that males also have a caring and nurturing side. I also like Mr Fox’s intelligence and ability to come up with solutions to every problem, like when he had to rescue Kristofferson. My favourite part of the movie was when all the animals used their different skills to come up with a plan to save Kristofferson. I like the fact that they all worked together, showing unity as it is said “divided we fall, united we stand”. This will teach children to be united and help each other, because “no man is and island”. I would recommend the movie because it is very educational, it has life teachings. Firstly, it teaches children not to be greedy like the farmers and share what they have with others. Secondly, it teaches children and even adults that crime does not pay (no dirty deeds goes unpunished) as we saw in the movie that Mr Fox lost his tale because of his crimes.  Lastly it encourages collaboration and team work as children grow they need to be expose to such teachings.