Isle of Dogs (2018)

WES ANDERSON'S: 'ISLE OF DOGS'

Last week Wes Anderson released his second stop motion animation feature titled, “Isle of Dogs.” It’s no surprise that it was released in theaters on National Puppy day, because we get a heart filled whimsical adventure that emotionally connects to any viewer who knows what it’s like to have a dog.

The story follows a young boy, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) — who also happens to be the ward of the mayor— is in search for his best friend, Spots (Liev Schreiber) on an island of quarantined dogs with ‘canine flu’. As you may guess, Spots is Atari’s dog who was also sent to the island. 

After a short quirky flashback-narrative used to fill in the blanks, the adventure takes place almost immediately with Atari landing on Trash Island, where a pack of yapping alpha dogs befriend him —Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum), who are determined to help the boy as a symbol of loyalty of the masters they once adoringly served. Only one dog holds out — the stray Chief (Bryan Cranston), who warns, rather plainly, “I bite.”

“Why should I help him?” says Chief to Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson), an immaculately groomed show dog who knows “some tricks,” and who captures Chief’s interest. 

“Because he’s a 12-year-old boy,” she responds. “Dogs love those.”

The bond between Chief and Atari is so masterfully crafted by Anderson as we follow these two throughout the journey we are guided to a deeper meaning between the two, as if it was in their genetic code to be bound with one another.

The film is full of a lot of dark moments, which seems to follow with a lot of Wes Anderson films. It actually hits a little close to home, considering the political landscape in America. The antagonist Mayor Kobayashi and his other corrupt  conspirers are not only cat people, but control the political landscape of Japan through their abuse of power. They’ve turned the people of Japan against the most loyal of creatures, in order to achieve the genocide of dogs. There were a few times I lost focus because of the subtle parallels of fascist behavior taking the world by storm and the political behaviors I couldn’t ignore. Either way, I admire an artist who can provide us with that kind of depth, especially in an animation. 

Overall you still get a large dose of comedy and with such a great cast, you are thoroughly entertained with these characters. It’s always nice to see so much talent in a Wes Anderson film, but this one is so stylized per character. The story drifts away from the pack, which is kind of my only criticism, but it’s for story purposes. I would have liked to get a little more of them in the end but it’s only because who doesn’t want more Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, and Edward Norton constantly chattering amongst one another as dogs.

The detail that went into this film cannot go unnoticed. With 670 crew members, over 30 of them being animators, this film was credited for being the longest stop motion film ever made. Even with such a large team, they had to spend about a year and a half just on the animation of the film. The crew was responsible for making everything out of scratch — The handmade sets, the props, puppets, and even mouths for each character designed for each vowel a human would make (both languages) — making it so hard for you to catch all the hard work on just the first viewing. The “sushi scene” is one of the scenes that really stood when I look back at the film. The way it was crafted and presented in a Wes Anderson-esque style made it such a pleasure to watch. It’s why fans of Wes Anderson go to see his movie. He has a way of using his space with such symmetry that it captures your full attention. 

If I could rate this film, I would give ‘Isle Of Dogs’ a 95%. Historically it may go down as one of the best animated films of our time, and it’s nice to see that we have creatives like Wes Anderson filling seats for quirky whimsical stories like this one. 

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