Wes Anderson’s newest film Isle of Dogs sees the writer/director return to the medium of stop-motion animation for the first time since 2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Little is known about the plot of this canine caper, other than it’s set in Japan 20 years in future and follows a young boy’s quest to retrieve his missing dog.
Anderson’s past films have been quite unkind to our furry four-legged friends, racking up a number of casualties: Snoopy the Fox Terrier in Moonrise Kingdom was hit by a stray arrow; Spitz the Beagle in Fantastic Mr Fox ate poisonous blueberries; and Buckley the Beagle in The Royal Tenenbaums was struck by a car.
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Perhaps this film is Anderson’s way of redeeming himself to the canine community? The first teaser poster for the film also featured a pile of plane debris and someone dressed in a pilot suit complete with parachute, alluding to some sort of crash landing – let’s just hope it wasn’t on top of a dog.
Anderson has divulged that the film is heavily influenced by Japanese screenwriter and director Akira Kurosawa, as well as the Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas specials. Edward Norton features in the lead role as a dog called Rex, while fellow Wes regulars Tilda Switon, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Murray also make an appearance alongside Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston and Yoko Ono.
Tonally ambiguous, we don’t yet know whether Isle of Dogs will be child friendly, but if its US release date (4/20) is anything to go by, then our guess is probably not…
Isle of Dogs is set for release in the UK on 30 March, 2018.
