Isle of Dogs (2018)

Isle of Dogs (2018): written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura; directed by Wes Anderson; starring the voices of Bryan Cranston (Chief), Koyu Rankin (Atari), Edward Norton (Rex), Bob Balaban (King), Bill Murray (Boss), Jeff Goldblum (Duke), Kunichi Nomura (Mayor Kobayashi), Akira Takayama (Major-Domo), Greta Gerwig (Tracy Walker), Scarlett Johansson (Nutmeg), Liev Schreiber (Spots), Yoko Ono (Assistant Scientist Yoko-ono), and Tilda Swinton (Oracle):

Isle of Dogs (say the title fast) may be my favourite Wes Anderson Joint. I haven't seen The Royal Tenenbaums for about a decade, and I'd have to rewatch it to come to a final decision. 

Anyway, 20 years into a sporadically retro future, the citizens of the Japanese city of Megasaki exile all their dogs to the island they dump their garbage on because the dogs are carriers of a mysterious plague. 

A plucky boy travels to the island in search of his dog. Several plucky people in Megasaki search for a cure. Many plucky things happen. Have I mentioned it's all in stop-motion puppetry and models except for some traditionally animated visuals? 

Anderson pursues the techniques he used on Fantastic Mr. Fox to even greater aesthetic nuance and occasional hilarity. The movie looks great. The musical score by Alexander Desplat is also great. The voice work works. Really, the whole thing is great. 

Even the in-film explanations of narrative decisions are funny. The dogs all speak English (well, they speak different languages depending on the country of release; in the English-speaking world, the dogs speak English). Everyone else speaks either Japanese or English in the case of the American exchange student who helps lead the battle for dogs' rights.

When exposition is needed, a translator is around within the world of the film to translate Japanese. In Japan, do the dogs speak Japanese and the people English?

This isn't exactly a children's movie, though older children should enjoy it. There's some violence and a couple of operating room scenes. Anderson seems to have picked up a welcome level of acerbic tartness from adapting Roald Dahl for Fantastic Mr. Fox -- the movie never moves too far into the twee as some Anderson films do. Its antagonists are suitably nasty. The stakes are mortal. 

Isle of Dogs  almost makes me wish that the YouTube parody in which Wes Anderson directs an X-Men movie were at least partially true. But better he stay away from superheroes and mainstream treacle. Highly recommended.