Review of Isle of Dogs (2018) by Joshua S — 15 May 2018

It would be easy to label Isle of Dogs as quirky. Hell, every Wes Anderson venture gets assigned the same dozen adjectives, including "whimsical" and "fairy-tale-esque." I prefer another word.

Brilliant. Set in a dystopian Japan, where Tokyo is being governed by a pseudo-fascist mayor with a vendetta against dogs, all canines are exiled to a hellish island. The mayor's nephew goes on a quest to find his own dog and comes across a gang of mutts with goals of their own.

Interestingly, a good chunk of the film's dialogue is in unsubtitled Japanese, as spoken by the humans. Our canine protagonists speak English and it is quite clear from this forced perspective (at least for Western audiences) that we are to view things from their point of view.

Isle of Dogs is a stop-motion animated movie, and while one may jump for joy that we have an animated children's movie that is not Pixar-style CGI, it's hard not to draw comparisons to Fantastic Mr.

Fox. Fox was a bit deeper and bolder, but Isle ends up being more entertaining and approachable for children. The voice cast is EXACTLY who you would pick considering who shows up for 90% of this director's filmography and they are superb.

But it's Bryan Cranston who does a lot of the heavy lifting and I would include this among his best work in the last few years. Yeah, I said that. Isle of Dogs is a smart and funny movie for older children and a probably a welcome relief to their parents, if they so choose to put this up on Netflix in a few months.

Oh, and play it back to back with Moonrise Kingdom. That's still Wes Anderson's best wide release.