Like the taxidermist who appears to have made the movie's creepily realistic puppets, Anderson has taken a standard kid's movie and stuffed it full of the cotton and sawdust he's become known for. (Of course, while I'm a big fan of his cotton and sawdust, not everyone is, so if you don't like Wes Anderson movies, save yourself a trip, unless you're some kind of die-hard stop-motion or Roald Dahl fan.) Whether he's created a movie that kids will want to see is another question -- there are a lot of adult discussions going on, including Mr. Fox's conversations with his wife about how he feels poor and his lawyer's warnings about the state of the housing market, and the fact that they're being spoken by an anthropomorphic fox and a badger doesn't make them any more kid-friendly. Adults, however, will find them hysterical, especially when they suddenly escalate into animalistic growling and circling, because the voice cast is top-notch.

George Clooney cranks up his rat-a-tat delivery as Mr. Fox, a chicken thief who promises his pregnant wife (the understated Meryl Streep) he'll go legit, and Fox is as in love with his own voice as Everett McGill was in O Brother Where Art Thou, minus the regionalism. (Interestingly, Fox seems to live in England, but none of the animals are British.) Jason Schwartzman kills as Fox's underdeveloped son Ash, who is sensitive about his unathleticism and likes to dress like his favorite comic book hero, the White Cape. Bill Murray plays it pretty straight as Fox's badger lawyer, Willem Dafoe plays it nice and creepy as a villainous rat, and Michael Gambon really delivers as the evil Mr. Bean, the alpha dog of the three victim farmers. Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Brian Cox also contribute minor voices, but the real vocal stars aren't even famous. Ash's visiting cousin Kristofferson -- who excels at everything, including diving, karate, and the confusing cricket/baseball mashup known as Whackbat -- is voiced by Anderson's brother Eric as a timid intellectual a la Michael Cera. And the superintendent opossum Kylie, who is easily confused and occasionally lapses into a death-like trance, is a voiced by Monsters vs. Aliens writer Wally Wolodarsky. (Both have had bit parts in all of Anderson's films.)

Besides the voice cast filled with his regulars, the film has a lot more of Anderson's trademarks -- montages, chapter headings, classic rock music, etc. The elaborate, multi-tiered sets he loves to build are likely much cheaper to produce at puppet scale, so there are plenty here, and every room is as detailed and jammed with props as the ones in his live-action films. The animation style can be a little creepy at times -- the animals occasionally resemble real, dead animals that have been made to walk around and (shudder) dance -- but the humans aren't much more realistic than the ones in an Aardman Animation film like Chicken Run, and may actually be more successful creations.

As funny and frequently beautiful as the film was, hopefully Anderson doesn't decide to stick with the puppets, which undoubtedly give him more control over his characters and sets than he ever could have hoped for. Because even as I laughed at the dialogue and the visual gags and the character freak-outs, I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, this is just like a real Wes Anderson movie!" (In other words, fantastic.) And the parts that were new, the ones that were unique to this style of animation and storytelling... well, they weren't necessarily my favorites. It was like Anderson had caught and skinned a kids' movie, and his regular movie was wearing that skin like a suit. Sure, it's fun to dress up once a year, at Halloween, but you don't want to be wearing a suit like that all the time.

Did you see Fantastic Mr. Fox? Tear it apart in the comments below.