Isle of Dogs

Runtime: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Wes Anderson

Quick Impressions:
You always know what to expect from a Wes Anderson movie, and he never fails to deliver. In fact, since he’s been collaborating with Roman Coppola, his work has even improved. Sometimes promising artists burn out over time, but Anderson seems to have taken the opposite trajectory. With Moonrise Kingdom, he finally hit his stride. Grand Budapest Hotel was also a near masterpiece, and so is Isle of Dogs. Who’s to say if Anderson has even peaked yet? Maybe his work will just keep getting better and better and better until he finally directs his greatest film on his death bed.

Of course, it’s also true that if you’re reading this review, muttering, “I’ve hated all of Wes Anderson’s weird, pretentious movies so far,” then you’re going to hate this one, too.

If, on yet another hand, you’re reading this and thinking, “Anderson’s work has declined since he became too mainstream. He hasn’t made a film of real quality since Rushmore,” then you might like Isle of Dogs slightly more than his other recent offerings since it is pretty quirky and off-kilter.

It’s definitely not the animated movie your kids will be begging to see this year (though your dogs may beg to see it if you put in the time to condition that response).

Perhaps to prepare us for the absurdity of the material, the theater where we watched the film made the baffling choice to show a barrage of trailers for random kids’ movies about talking pets, culminating in Show Dogs (staring Will Arnett as the human) which I am positive will not even be playing there. (Maybe the studio is responsible for the trailer package, not the movie theater, but it was still hilariously misguided.)

I leaned over to my husband and whispered, “If you like dogs…” And he laughed.

Surely nobody in that auditorium with us bought a ticket to Isle of Dogs thinking, “Finally! A cute movie for dog lovers like me!”

I’m sure most people will go because a) they love Wes Anderson b) they love stop motion or c) they love someone who loves Wes Anderson or stop motion.

I mean, that’s why my husband and I were there. Frankly all the trailers for Isle of Dogs were dismal and off-putting, but I knew the movie would be good because Wes Anderson is the most consistent working filmmaker I can call to mind.  He’s like Alfred Hitchcock (except he doesn’t torture his leading ladies with birds) (that I know of).

And, honestly, Isle of Dogs was even better than I had hoped. It has humor, heart, dazzling stop motion, an amazing voice cast, and a catchy score from this year’s Oscar winner Alexandre Desplat.

(If you’re wondering, this film doesn’t have any direct connection to the suppressed Elizabethan play Isle of Dogs, but I’d guess the writers are aware of the play since this movie is about a trash island filled with dogs and the conspiracies of a corrupt government.)

The Good:
The first twenty minutes of this movie are screamingly funny. There’s a haiku near the beginning that pretty much killed me. Normally I don’t think, “Hmm…what’s hilarious? I know! A haiku!” But seriously, I was laughing out loud except without sound. That happened to me repeatedly during this film. I’d lean forward in incredulous delight, grip my husband’s hand or leg tightly, and mime riotous laughter.

For me, Isle of Dogs is a huge improvement over Anderson’s previous stop motion project, Fantastic Mr. Fox simply because it’s immediately much funnier. Fantastic Mr. Fox is great, too. I’m enchanted by all the meticulous work Anderson poured into bringing the world of Dahl’s story to life in loving detail. But Mr. Fox features subtler, quirkier humor, the kind that becomes more appealing after repeat viewings. Isle of Dogs is just ridiculous and riotous the first time you watch. As the story progresses, it focuses increasingly on the dramatic and touching moments, but there’s always an undercurrent of humor.

I was also incredibly impressed by the stop motion. The amount of detail in the sets is staggering, and the humor created by the characters’ facial expressions, stances, and the timing of their movements just blows my mind. I do not understand how Anderson does that. How does he create humor by using momentum and timing when he’s working with little puppets of animals?

How does someone used to directing live action films even go about translating those skills to stop motion? How does somebody make a film using real actors and then decide, “Okay, my next project will be set in a crazy, fictionalized version of Japan, and it will star dogs who speak in human voices, and they will be puppets!”?

Watching, I had a reaction similar to my wonder at the work of that other famous auteur Anderson. How could Paul Thomas Anderson just decide to give us a vivid look at fashion in 1950s London? How can Wes Anderson similarly immerse us in this stop motion world of mistreated Japanese dogs? I mean, I have a pretty big imagination, but I can’t imagine suddenly plunging into a new, vivid, foreign world when my previous project explored an entirely different world in the same detail. I mean, yes, you do research, but where do you get the confidence to present that world as though you have a right to be defining it for an audience? My daughter works like that, but she’s in third grade. As an adult, I would be afraid to speak for a community that wasn’t my own.

The movie does a really interesting thing, though. All the Japanese human characters are voiced by Japanese actors speaking Japanese. The dogs are voiced by English speaking movie stars. We’re told at the beginning that their barking is presented in translation for our convenience.

One of Anderson’s co-writers is Japanese (Kunichi Nomura), so I suppose that’s one reason Anderson feels comfortable setting the story in Japan. It’s a bold move, and it makes for a novel and interesting story, one we haven’t seen millions of times before, which is difficult to pull off with a “boy and his dog” premise.

As you would expect, the movie also benefits from the talents of its enormous cast of stars. (Seriously, it has a cast to rival Avengers: Infinity War. Even Scarlett Johansson shows up!)

For some reason, the women’s voices are all easier to recognize than the men’s. Maybe it’s because there are fewer female characters, limiting the possibilities. (And it helps, of course, that Yoko Ono’s character is named Yoko Ono.)

After the film, my husband and I chatted about how Scarlett Johansson’s voice doesn’t seem unusual when you hear it in a live action film, yet when that same voice is offered in isolation of the rest of her, you immediately recognize it. She’s fantastic as Nutmeg, the former show dog and elusive love interest of Bryan Cranston’s Chief. Their scenes together successfully blend humor and sentiment.

Tilda Swinton doesn’t get that much to say, but the character seems perfect for her, and I love her visions.

I must confess that I was so thrilled to recognize the voice of the exchange student as Greta Gerwig (which I wouldn’t have been able to do before watching recent interviews and behind-the-scenes clips of Lady Bird) that I have no idea if she’s giving a good performance or not. I assume she is since a bad performance would have stuck out. That line, “Somebody is up to something,” also featured in the trailer has been bothering me for the longest time. I could swear I’ve heard it before in some parody of Anderson’s work. I rewatched the SNL video, “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders,” but the line is not in that. I could swear I’ve heard it before and that it’s some kind of self-referential joke, but possibly I’m just crazy.

Frances McDormand has the honor of being the first voice actor I decisively recognized. At the very beginning of the film, I whispered excitedly to my husband, “That’s Frances McDormand!” (Before long, I realized I had to quit doing that since there are like fifty million stars in this movie.)  McDormand also gives my favorite female performance in the film because she’s just the translator, but her line delivery makes the part so funny. (I mean, it’s written to be funny, but pulling that off takes some talent.)

Trying to recognize the voices becomes like a little game because (unless I missed something) the principal cast is never identified by role. One voice I could not recognize was Peppermint, a late arrival in the film. Afterwards I discovered she’s voiced by Kara Hayward who plays Suzy in Moonrise Kingdom.
There are so many male actors in the cast that it’s really hard to keep track of them all. I mean, obviously, you can easily pick out the Jeff Goldblum dog and the Bill Murray dog, and by the time the F. Murray Abraham dog showed up, I could tell it was him because no one else had sounded like F. Murray Abraham, but there are so many dogs voiced by so many actors. It’s a little dizzying in the moment.

Bryan Cranston is fantastic as Chief. He and the equally great Edward Norton play off each other incredibly well. I loved both of them.

Best Joke:
Of course, my favorite among the male dogs was Jeff Goldblum’s Duke. I just loved the whole, “Have you heard the rumor?” bit. That’s one of the most hilarious ways I’ve seen to give exposition, especially because the joke escalates in each iteration, as the information relayed becomes increasingly specific and recent.

Best Scene:
Every scene in this film is good. One of the strengths of Isle of Dogs is that nothing is lazy and no second of screentime is wasted. So it’s really hard to call out a best scene.

One of that stood out for me is the lament of the cannibal dogs, as their de facto leader Gordo (voiced by Harvey Keitel) explains the truth of their predicament and can’t keep himself from keening.

Best Action Sequence:
I love the visual effect when the dogs fight. Whoever came up with that is a genius. One of the best action sequences is the first escape by Atari (voiced by Koyu Rankin) from the rescue drone on Trash Island because it works so well visually, and Edward Norton and Bryan Cranston manage to make it surprisingly funny.

Best Scene Visually:
The visuals in this movie are astounding. I’d love to see a behind-the-scenes special about the thought put into set design and the creators of the puppets. Not only are the characters and sets rendered in meticulous detail, but also so much of the humor comes from the positioning, movement, and timing of the characters in their interactions. Since this is achieved through the manipulation of puppets, I must confess I’m in awe.

Isle of Dogs also very artfully incorporates hand drawn animation. Moments like Atari taking out cameras with his slingshot are so well done. I especially love the way Chief successfully imagines Nutmeg’s tricks. And the way we see the news and information relayed to us is always so engaging.

Also, in terms of just looking cool, there’s a scene of the dogs silhouetted against a background of colorful glass bottles (some labelled Sake) that is especially eye catching.

The Negatives:
I still have this nagging feeling that setting the story in Japan is a weird thing for Anderson to do, especially when he makes everything so bizarre and crazy. I mean, real Japanese culture resembles the Japan of this movie only to the same degree that The Muppet Show or South Park accurately depict American culture. Nobody is suggesting this version of Japanese life is realistic, of course.  Still, I’m surprised that Anderson can get away with setting the story in a bizarre version of Japan so arbitrarily. (I mean, why if the story is original and fictional does it need to take place in Japan?)

Now, it’s fine with me if Anderson makes up this crazy version of Japan, but I’m not Japanese. Maybe Japanese audiences are just overjoyed there’s a Wes Anderson movie about them. But then, who are these Japanese audiences? It’s not like Japan has one set audience with one common viewpoint shared by everyone in the entire country.  I’m sure Japanese audiences are just like American ones.  Every single person has his own take on any given movie.  That’s how reality works, right?