‘Isle of Dogs’ Film Review: Wes Anderson’s Fetching Animated Tale Features His Pet Obsessions
The meticulous visuals are bow-wowing, but some may have a bone to pick with the director’s Japan-centered saga
Robert Abele | March 22, 2018 @ 1:22 PM
Last Updated: March 22, 2018 @ 1:23 PM
Fox Searchlight
In Wes Anderson’s dazzlingly but also puzzlingly realized (more on that in a moment) “Isle of Dogs,” a dystopian fable pitting man’s best friends against its worst fiends in a futuristic Japan, the writer-director proves again that in his hands, a bedtime story is more likely to be an over-stimulant than a narcotic.
When humans first met canines, each fortuitously emboldened a change in the other, and the same could be said for Anderson regarding stop-motion animation: cinema’s premier dioramist could finally go as micro-controlling as needed and still turn out his freest, most lovable work (2009’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox”), while an art form overwhelmed by its digitized brethren showed it could attract hip filmmaking talent and produce eccentric, artisanal masterworks.
“Isle of Dogs” isn’t the sly, maturely immature gem “Mr. Fox” remains — even with that phonic pun of a title — but it’s a mostly enjoyably overstuffed model kit of adventure ingredients: talking dog heroes, an intrepid boy aviator, an outspoken girl reporter, garbage playgrounds, mechanical worlds, robot peril and mischievous humor. It’s even, for this director, tantalizingly political, venturing into dark territory about such utopia-bursting ills as bigotry and authoritarianism.
And yet it’s still nth-degree Anderson in its visuals, wit, and personality, a carefully unfolded pop-up universe of influences (dig that “Seven Samurai” music shoutout), itemizations, tangents, analog textures, communication quirks (English-speaking dogs, non-subtitled Japanese humans), cartographic flourishes, and deadpan comic charm. Its profundity can easily bring out your inner parent, the kind in thrall to an imaginative kid’s attention to storytelling detail, even if the thread occasionally gets lost.
The story, dreamed up by Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola and Konichi Nomura, takes place in the fictional Megasaki, years after a degree by corrupt Mayor Kobayashi (a reference to the frank-scarfing champion?) exiles all dogs to Trash Island over ginned-up fears of conditions called dog-flu, snout-fever, and “canine saturation.” (The mythical history of anti-dog sentiment is narrated in a dryly amusing prologue styled like ancient Japanese woodblock prints, and capped with, of course, a haiku.)
Trash Island — flat, monochromatic, and industrial — may be the bleakest setting in all of Anderson-dom, but it is exquisitely littered. When a bickering pack of roving ex-pets (voiced by Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban and Jeff Goldblum) and a battle-hardened stray named Chief (Bryan Cranston) investigate a downed plane on their waste-heap atoll, they discover 12-year-old Atari (Koyu Rankin) — orphan ward to the Mayor (Nomura) — determined at all costs to find the loyal, beloved bodyguard companion named Spots (Liev Schreiber) who was stripped from his side years ago.
The appealingly motley island dogs, spurred by fond memories of their human-serving days, decide to help Atari in his quest, although their motivation rankles Chief, whose grizzled cynicism about obedience sparks the film’s funniest intra-canine banter. The boy’s disappearance back home, however, is just the crisis to push the Mayor (modeled like a composite of every venal Toshiro Mifune tough he ever played for Kurosawa) into an even nastier plan to eradicate all dogs. On his case, though, is an activist foreign exchange student (Greta Gerwig) who smells conspiracy.
To count the number of ways “Isle of Dogs” blares “Wes Anderson!” is pointless, but some of my favorite touches include the cotton-cloud chaos that signals a mutt melee, a breathtaking if graphic sushi-making digression, and the nicely pitched doggy-noir exchanges between Chief and a lushly-furred former show dog named Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson). If he’s gaining at all as a filmmaker, it’s in his craftier layering of narrative, comedy, and painstaking design so that they keep the whole engine moving instead of lingering, waiting to be regarded.
But there’s always that nagging sense that Anderson’s fondness for cultural appropriation — the India of “The Darjeeling Limited,” the vanished Europe of “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and now his Eastern Asia reverie — has more to do with décor-driven pleasures than a resonant inner identity.
It’s one thing to weave a fantasy about saving dogs, and set it in the Japanophilic backdrop of your movie-mad dreams, but there’s a careless insensitivity in evoking issues of internment and annihilation for what amounts to an expensive Japan-set flipbook, particularly if you aren’t even going to provide subtitles for the native characters, who are mostly archetypes anyway. (That aforementioned language gimmick starts out as a head-scratcher, and pretty much stays that.) Then there’s the movie’s A-list vocal talent, a curious case of white-voicing when it comes to its four-legged original characters, who are ostensibly Japanese dogs.
None of it’s done out of any meanness, but it eventually worms its way into your appreciation of Anderson’s otherwise meticulous, wry blend of puppetry, 2D expressionism and dollhouse technique. There is much to admire about how “Isle of Dogs” channels its filmmaker’s design-lab obsessions and neurotic humanity into often beautiful, smile-inducing images, even if you’re not quite ready to pat Anderson on the head after the trick is over and say, “Good boy.”
All 9 Wes Anderson Features Ranked, Worst to Best (Photos)
Ranking the films of Wes Anderson might be a fool's errand because, in some respects, his films are all closely related. He makes light comedies about melancholy characters, creating exceptionally detailed productions with, more often than not, incredibly breezy plots. Anderson's storytelling sensibilities have come to practically define the word "quirky," and fans of the filmmaker will find something to appreciate about all of his movies. But some are more entertaining than others, some are more dramatically satisfying, and a select few feel truly magical. With that in mind, let's rank them from worst to best:
9. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Some might argue that Anderson has never made a "bad" movie, but even so, "The Darjeeling Limited" comes close. Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody star as estranged brothers who reunite for a spiritual journey in India, but of course they're self-absorbed narcissists who bring chaos wherever they go. There are moments of real beauty in this movie -- particular a bravura panning shot of every character in their own personalized train car, whether or not they're actually on the train -- but the protagonists are the last people you'd ever want to be seated next to on a long trip, so watching them in a movie isn't much fun either.
Fox Searchlight
8. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Tries to do for marine biologists what "Raiders of the Lost Ark" did for archaeologists. Bill Murray stars as the title character, a scientist and documentary filmmaker whose latest voyage involves high-seas heists, deadly pirates, and all manner of fanciful undersea creatures, brought to life via stop-motion animation. It's an endearing adventure when it focuses on the adventure, but the characters are mostly emotionally distant jerks who hide behind artifice, and the movie spends most of its time on their petty and largely insignificant personal dramas. Willem Dafoe brings this movie to life, however, as Zissou's endearingly needy first mate.
Touchstone Pictures
7. Bottle Rocket (1996)
Wes Anderson's first feature film, like pretty much all of his movies, is about starry-eyed dreamers desperately trying to rework the world into something that resembles their fantastical worldview. This time, however, it's played for comic tragedy. Luke Wilson stars as a mild-mannered stooge whose best friend (played by Owen Wilson) dreams of becoming a master criminal. They embark on a career in very modest larceny, but although it may be entertaining for the audience, it brings them no happiness. There's a subtle melancholy to "Bottle Rocket," an unmistakable air of self-doubt that makes it very sweet and very relatable.
Columbia Pictures Corporation
6. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Might be Anderson's most celebrated film, and it's easy to see why. It's an imaginative story about a hotel concierge who inherits a fortune and then gets framed for murder, which sends the story into -- as we have come to expect from this filmmaker -- unexpected directions. Every single character is a scene-stealer, even if they only have a few lines of dialogue, and Ralph Fiennes absolutely commands the screen in an all-time classic comic performance. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is a superb comedy, but it still lacks the emotional heft of Anderson's greatest work.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
5. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Anderson's oddball sensibilities took on a richer, more literary quality in "The Royal Tenenbaums," the story of a large family of geniuses who, later in life, collapse into a disappointing puddle of mediocrity. Gene Hackman stars as the estranged patriarch who returns home and tries to bring his family together with the news that he is dying. Unfortunately, he's still a selfish sybarite who ruined everyone's lives, so it's not easy. The stink of failure is everywhere in "Tenenbaums" -- but it's a powerful stink, not unlike a fancy cheese, and it helps all these brilliant yet pathetic characters make a distinct and lasting impression.
Touchstone Pictures
4. Rushmore (1998)
Another striking piece of self-indictment, "Rushmore" stars Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer, an overachieving student who gets terrible grades but otherwise can accomplish seemingly anything. He befriends a miserable millionaire played by Bill Murray, and together they sabotage each other, and themselves, as they woo a remarkable teacher played by Olivia Williams. "Rushmore" is an amusing film with an undeniably dark streak. The creativity that so often typifies Anderson's characters becomes destructive and reveals unpleasant aspects of their personalities. But Anderson obviously has hope for these characters, and he really, really, loves staging Max's absurdly elaborate high school plays.
Touchstone Pictures
3. Isle of Dogs (2018)
With time, "Isle of Dogs" might turn out to be Wes Anderson's finest film. For now, it's certainly his most imaginative. It's a stop-motion animated adventure about a near future in which all dogs have been banished to a trash-strewn island, where a pack of mangy mutts help a brave young boy find his pet. Their path is filled with adventure, whimsical asides, political conspiracies, robots, you name it. It's as fun and as fanciful an adventure as anyone could hope for, with genuinely thoughtful subtexts about xenophobia, propaganda, racism, and plenty of other lofty subjects that Anderson rarely tackles.
Fox Searchlight
2. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Two kids fall in love and run away together in "Moonrise Kingdom," a deceptively simple set-up for a remarkably rich motion picture. Once again, Anderson populates his film with characters who remake the world around them, but we see how little pleasure it actually brings them, and how far they are willing to go to force others to conform to those expectations. That this takes the form of "Khaki Scouts" pursuing runaway dreamers with all the zeal of Tommy Lee Jones in "The Fugitive" transforms the story's tragedy into thoroughly charming imagery. Anderson has never made a more emotionally rich movie.
Focus Features
1. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Anderson has spent the majority of his career treating the art of filmmaking like the art of making elaborate dioramas, so it only makes sense that he'd fully blossom as a director in the medium of stop-motion animation. In his ingenious adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book, a fox (voiced by George Clooney) undergoes a midlife crisis and risks the security of his family to resume his old career as a chicken thief. It explodes in his face and nearly dooms every animal in the forest. Everything in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is fantastically particular, every detail is welcoming and funny, and all of it is in service of a satisfying and refreshingly zen story about finding a comfortable compromise between being an individual, and being part of a family and community. It's mature, giddily amusing, exciting cinema.
Twentieth Century Fox
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With “Isle of Dogs” hitting theaters, here’s a look at his oeuvre to date
Ranking the films of Wes Anderson might be a fool's errand because, in some respects, his films are all closely related. He makes light comedies about melancholy characters, creating exceptionally detailed productions with, more often than not, incredibly breezy plots. Anderson's storytelling sensibilities have come to practically define the word "quirky," and fans of the filmmaker will find something to appreciate about all of his movies. But some are more entertaining than others, some are more dramatically satisfying, and a select few feel truly magical. With that in mind, let's rank them from worst to best:
Fox Searchlight
