Review- Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs is the latest Wes Anderson film and if you know anything about his previous work, it shouldn't be a surprise to you that it is an absolute delight. The story centres around the eponymous  (Japanese) island, one that used to be home only to trash but after an outbreak of snout fever is reshaped into a home for all the infected and unwanted dogs. We follow a pack of dogs who encounter a young pilot, who has flown to the island in search of his dog. The plot can be boiled down to that but there is actually much more going on under the surface. It's not exactly a film of twists and turns but its plots and sub-plots are all fully fleshed out and like many of Anderson's other films, it ventures out beyond the compounds of story you're expecting.

This is the bit where I talk about the performances in the film but honestly, it's pretty hard to do when there's a cast as embarrassingly huge as this, so I'll just list some notable people and point out the highlights. There's (deep breath) Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Frances McDormand, Scarlet Johansson, Harvey Keitel, Yoko Ono, Tilda Swinton, Liev Schreiber and Courtney B Vance. Getting to personal highlights though, Greta Gerwig has stepped out of the directors chair after Lady Bird and back to actress and she voices a character whose sweetness really stuck with me. I'll find a way to love Edward Norton in just about anything but fortunately, he makes it easy to love his role. His character, Rex, could only really work with a voice like Norton's and he truly does give it his all, lending a delightful dry wit to the proceedings. The closest thing to a lead role though, both in terms of quality performance and amount of lines, is the delightful Bryan Cranston. With his voice, Cranston is able to perfectly project that hardened exterior with a soft inside that he's done so many times before and that few others are able to do.

It's genuinely impossible to talk about this film though without praising endlessly the animation. It's the second time Anderson has ventured into stop-motion animation after Fantastic Mr Fox and it's a medium perfectly suited to an auteur with tastes as specific as his, as it allows every frame to be literally hand crafted to delight. All of the character models are so deliberately crafted and each and every inch of them allows you to know everything about their character before they even speak. There's also plenty of other wonderful touches like the soft billowing of dog fur in the wind or the cotton wool cloud that springs up whenever a fight launches. See, with any Wes Anderson film, the mise en scene and cinematography is pretty much perfect and while I don't think this is quite up there with my favourite two of his overall, it is the most impressively crafted. At many points in the film, I was just in absolute awe at the craftsmanship present in each little scrap of the frame, a prime example being an extreme long shot where animators had taken the time to animate some cyclists in the bottom left corner. Seriously, just wonderful.

I would be amazed if you saw Isle of Dogs and didn't enjoy it, it's literally hand crafted to delight. It took a little longer to pull me in than some other Anderson films, which is probably my biggest complaint with the film. Still, it's made in a way that is too impressive to comprehend and it is charming beyond measure, easily earning the film a