CHICAGO – Fans of director Wes Anderson will find plenty to love in his second stop motion animated feature (after “Fantastic Mr. Fox”), entitled “Isle Of Dogs.” It’s an immersive and intricately detailed story set in Japan, and features a dizzying array of visual gags, along with Anderson’s trademark whimsy.
 Rating: 4.5/5.0 |
Anderson’s style has become a genre unto itself at this point, but that doesn’t mean he’s been making the same movie over and over again… “Isle Of Dogs” finds a way to refine and open up new avenues for the director to explore. The action takes place in the fictional Japanese metropolis of Megasaki. The Mayor (voice of Kunichi Nomura) belongs to a long line of cat fanciers. So he has banned all dogs from the city because of a case of “snout fever” and doggy flu, and they’re exiled on a giant garbage dump called “trash island.” But an orphan boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin), who also happens to be the mayor’s distant nephew, makes a daring journey to the island to find his beloved dog Spots (Liev Schreiber).
There’s also a familiar-but-fairly-inventive extended riff on the age old differences between cat people and dog people, which also carries plenty of political allegory. But it’s worth noting that Anderson never lets the message get in the way of the story… it’s subtle enough to make an impression without hijacking everything else around it.
Continue reading for Spike Walter’s full review of “Isle of Dogs” [27]
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