Three word review of Isle of Dogs: quirky yet entertaining. Alternate: must love dogs.
It’s also quite charming, endearing even. I’m not a huge Wes Anderson fan. I couldn’t sit through Life Aquatic (though Fit loves it) or the Royal Tenenbaums, although I did enjoy The Grand Budapest Hotel. Fantastic Mr Fox looked intriguing, but not enough to see it, apparently. I’ve missed all of his other works, but after seeing Isle of Dogs, I might reconsider watching his older films.
As soon as I saw the trailer for Isle of Dogs, I knew that it’d take some serious foul play for me to walk out of that theater unhappy. You take all of these things that we love (dogs, Japan, stop-motion animation) and put them together with a creative and witty individual who can pull in some serious voice actors. It is a formula for success, and despite my expectations being set so high, the work easily made it over the bar.
I gave up, relatively early on in the film, trying to figure out the voice acting. Instead of being distracted from all the nuances and quirks throughout the film, I accepted the fact that I only recognized Edward Norton and Scarlett Johansson. To a certain degree, it allowed me to focus more on the character of the featured dogs based on their personalities and backgrounds. Each of them came from significantly different homes, and contrasted from the one in their group who was seen as stray. It might’ve been cheesy at times, but there were plenty of unexpected plot twists, so you were always engaged.
The soundtrack was marvelous and the art direction was top notch. The stop-motion was so intricate and really added to the strict society that you’re immersed in throughout the film. While I did see a few complaints about the film being racist, I felt that no harm was meant and the only social narrative was really against our political situation here in the US. That was the feeling that I got, at least.
So, if you’re a Wes Anderson fan, a fan of good movies/animation or a fan of animals (especially dogs), then you’re going to love Isle of Dogs. While it might not need to be seen in the theaters (especially Fox’s screening theater), you don’t want to miss it. Limited released was last week, but a much wider release is set for April 6th. More importantly, we heard that some theaters are allowing customers to bring their dogs. Yes please!
