"Isle of Dogs" Review

On Mar. 23, Wes Anderson released his second major stop-motion film, "Isle of Dogs." The Academy-award winning director outdid himself in his creation of the Japanese folktale-based, K-9 friendly feature film. In a picture resembling the style of "Fantastic Mr. Fox,” The stop-motion picture team used by Wes Anderson perfectly captured the dystopian, Japanese mob-ruled Megasaki City and adventure of the foreign-speaking nephew of the ruling mayor of Megasaki City, Atari Kobayashi. Mayor Kobayashi, in an attempt to fight the dog flu virus encroaching on Megasaki City, banishes all dogs to a distant trash island for dogs to fend for themselves. Along with that declaration, Mayor Kobayashi banishes the house pet of the Kobayashi family and protector of Atari Kobayashi, Spots. Determined to retrieve his canine friend, Atari steals a plane to fly to trash island and find his dog. As Atari crash-lands, a group of mutts working together to survive stumbles upon the crash site. Once they understood that Atari is looking for his best friend, Spots, they search for him and their quest begins.  "Isle of Dogs" did an amazing job in capturing the emotional bond between a boy and his dog. The cast of the movie was exquisite, featuring many actors Wes Anderson has used to make his creations in the past. The cast features: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Courtney B. Vance, Fisher Stevens, Harvey Keitel, Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Frank Wood and Yoko Ono. Each individual voice did an amazing job to obtain the precise detail and sound of each character. The overall aesthetic of the film was just so pleasing to the eye. I don't think this movie could have been any better than it was in stop-motion. It was so incredible that such a hard practice was done with such complexity. Each piece of clay used to sculpt the character figures in the film is so detailed and polished. In my opinion, “Isle of Dogs” was one of Wes Anderson's best major pictures.  In summary, this movie was a heartwarming tale of a boy trying to retrieve his best friend; his dog. It features outlandish concepts surrounded by a Japanese environment. It has a humorous touch, as the barks of dogs are translated but the human voices stay in a foreign tongue (mainly Japanese and very little English); it creates the feeling of a foreign film. Even though a lot of the human-dogs are Japanese and the main source of English is from their viewpoint, it's so easy to understand what's going on, which is, all in all, a little crazy and outrageous. I think it was one of the best animated movies anyone will see for a long time, and definitely up to the caliber of "Fantastic Mr. Fox."