Wes Anderson has history with dogs. And it’s the kind of history that might have landed him on some kind of PETA watchlist. In Moonrise Kingdom, a fox terrier named Snoopy took a fatal arrow in the neck. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, a beagle called Spitz got knocked out via drugged blueberries. Another mutt is killed in The Royal Tenenbaums, while the one in The Life Aquatic escapes with only a newspaper whack from Bill Murray. Happily, though, Anderson has made up for all previous incidents of cinematic canicide with his latest, a joyous and visually splendid panegyric to man’s four-legged friend in which most (if not all) of the dogs survive unscathed.
His second stop-motion animation after the aforementioned Fox, Isle Of Dogs is Anderson at his loosest and goosiest; you could say he’s been let off his leash. While it’s set in Japan and features sequences of such highly formalised traditions as sushi preparation, kabuki theatre and taiko drumming, the story itself has the giddy vibe of something that’s being made up as it goes along. There are sudden flights backwards and forwards in time, fourth-wall-breaking, daft action licks (wasabi-guns FTW) and some narratively inessential detours, such as one in which a character pauses their quest to, for no apparent reason, have a go on a slide. At the same time, though, it is frequently heavy with pathos and sometimes even downright lugubrious. Bolt, this is not.
For the most part Isle Of Dogs is a peculiar and entrancing affair.
Most of the action takes place on a remote “refu-centre” off the coast of Japan named Trash Island, where 750,000 pet dogs have been abandoned following an outbreak of flu. It’s a horrendous place, a toxic wasteland that’s short on food and infested with rats. But Anderson and his animators find beauty in this Mordor-like islet, unveiling one weirdly enchanting landscape after another, from an abandoned golf course to a shack constructed of brightly coloured sake bottles. The same is true of the pooch-tagonists, who at first glance are tick-ridden, diseased, savage beasts, but reveal hidden depths and quirks as the tale ticks on. The film’s attention is mainly focused on Chief, a gruff, horribly scarred stray voiced by Bryan Cranston, but his companions get some memorable moments too: there’s a sleek mountain dog who loves gossip (Jeff Goldblum), a neurotic hound who can’t pass up an opportunity to call a vote (Edward Norton), and a well-groomed, acrobatic lady-dog (Scarlett Johansson) who inspires the line, “All the ones I like, they’re never in heat.”
The voice cast is, frankly, ridiculous, but not all of them make an impact: when Bill Murray gets lost in the mix, something has gone wrong somewhere. And visually, too, it becomes a bit of a blur of fur — new packs of animals are introduced late in the day, and the film cuts with increasing freneticism between Trash Island and events back in the city of Megasaki, where a sinister conspiracy is unfurling. The charm falters slightly in the third act, as an American character leads the human resistance (while a Japanese one just sits and weeps) and things are resolved with brawn rather than wit.
But for the most part Isle Of Dogs is a peculiar and entrancing affair, treating the country in which it’s set with respect but also the kind of high-energy hyper-stylisation Tarantino brought to Kill Bill Vol. 1. It’s a movie that has robot battle-dogs, but also conversations about suicide. By far an odder proposition than Fantastic Mr. Fox, it’s not exactly for kids, not exactly for adults, but surely pretty much everyone will find something to love. Unless you’re a cat — cats are going to hate it.
