Review of Isle of Dogs (2018) by Yoloducktv — 28 Dec 2018

Isle of Dogs is a good movie that I think everyone should see at least once. The movie captivated me with its interesting story and beautiful set pieces. The animation in this movie is absolutely beautiful.

I love the quiet scenes where they're all walking through beautiful environments, and the characters are black silhouettes. I'm also a big fan of the story, contrary to some other people. I love how this takes place in China and all the dogs are segregated to some remote island because of the disease their spreading.

One thing I don't really understand and they might of explained in the movie is why Kobayashi or Major Domo hate dogs so much and want to kill them all. I guess its because there was a war between dog and cat dynasties at the beginning, but anyway I digress.

Anyway, one other thing that I love about this movie so much is the colonization of the trash island the dogs were sent to and how they live. There is this one scene in the movie that I love and appreciate so much.

Its when the owl comes to Spots and his tribe because he is the "messenger" of the island and the entire tribe gathers around the owl, and Spots says to the other dog, "get this owl some sewer water".

As if these dogs are a real tribe giving a piece offering to this wise owl for sharing his information. There is a lot of good memorable scenes in this movie too. Again I like the quiet scenes where they are walking around these deserted beautiful set pieces.

There is this where they are all building a boat which looks beautiful. A scene at the beginning where the dogs are fighting over a bag of garbage which is a great scene. I like how the 5 main dogs have to take a vote before they do something.

The comedy in this film is alright, nothing that I laughed out loud at, but gave a little "heh" to. The humor is very visual comedy based, but there still is some witty dialogue in there as well.

I want to talk about the animation again because it is so good! Wes Anderson and his team built figurines and small set pieces for them, and moved the figurines around frame by frame. You can really tell the amount of detail that went into the animation.

I like when there is a fight in this movie, there is just a big cloud around the fight like an old cartoon, or how when a character is angry smoke will come out of there nose. Its those small details that really make me appreciate the animation.

A flaw I have with this movie, is how some of the characters are just complete **** and not interesting at all. Like the stupid blonde afro girl who looks like she has smallpox, every scene she's in I just want to skip because she is just a boring, uninteresting character who tries to expose Kobayashi for the corrupt leader he is and what he's done, but she really just does nothing.

She's just there as a sort of love interest for Atari. Speaking of love interest Scarlett Johansson's character is just another boring love interest for a main character and really adds nothing to the movie.

Another character i'm not a fan of is Atari himself. He has a lot to do in this movie and has huge weight in the story. But he doesn't really do anything and just kinda speaks chinese the whole time, he's just not a very interesting character to me.

All and all this is a good movie with a lot to like about, but I don't think this is Wes Anderson's best movie. It has beautiful animation, some interesting characters, and a compelling story. Honestly though I think anyone should see this movie just for the animation and beautiful visuals.