Isle of Dogs

Directed by 

Wes Anderson

There are few pleasures greater (for me, anyway) than being truly surprised by a wonderful film. While I watch a lot of movies, the vast majority of them either fall short of expectations or are pretty much exactly what I expected going in. The ones that are so good that they catch me off guard are generally the highlights of my movie watching month or year. 

Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson's latest film and second stop motion animated effort, is definitely one such example of this type of surprisingly good movie. 

Like all of Anderson's films, Isle of Dogs has an interesting plot, compelling characters, hilarious jokes, an undercurrent of real emotion, beautifully constructed sets, and a quirky soundtrack. The only thing separating Dogs from everything else he's made (with the exception of Fantastic Mr. Fox) is that he's using stop motion animation. While I like all of Anderson's "regular" movies, they vary in quality from "above average" to "good" to "great". Now with two stop motion films (both getting "great" ratings from me) under his belt, I'm beginning to think he should maybe focus exclusively on these types of films. 

Isle of Dogs takes place in Japan in the near future, at a time when a rampant disease is effecting all the dogs in the city of Megasaki and is threatening to cross into humans if nothing is done. The staunchly anti-dog mayor, Kobayashi, signs a decree, ordering all dogs to be transported to Trash Island, where they'll live on their own among the garbage, crumbling infrastructure, and rats with nary a human to infect. The first dog deported belongs to Kobayashi's nephew Atari. Spots is his one true friend and Atari soon travels to the island to find his beloved pet and meets a group of other dogs who decide to help the young boy in his quest. The action on the island is interspersed with a subplot in the city of Megasaki concerning Kobayashi's conspiracy to eliminate the dogs at any cost, even going as far as to sabotage medical cures and people running against him for mayor.

All the humans in the film speak their native language, without subtitles. So all the Japanese people speak exclusively Japanese. There are two English speaking human characters - a foreign exchange student who helps to uncover the conspiracy and an interpreter who covers all of Kobayashi's television appearances - and the dogs themselves speak English, but not Japanese so they can't understand Atari, which leads to some funny moments. 

The voice cast is filled with Anderson regulars like Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, and Angelica Huston, plus first time Anderson collaborators such as Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, Ken Watanabe, and (inexplicably) Yoko Ono (playing a scientist named... Yoko Ono). Koyu Rankin makes his feature film debut as the voice of Atari and is joined by fellow Japanese actors Kunichi Nomura, Akira Takayama, Akira Ito, Mari Natsuki, Yojiro Noda, and Nijiro Murakami. Overall, the cast is wonderful - each actor captures their character and none of them overpower what's going on onscreen, which can be difficult when doing voice over work.

* The impressive cast list *

The dogs are the standouts in the story. Chief, the rascally and hesitant hero of the story, has such a complex character and such a tremendous arc that he rivals any human character in any movie I've seen all year. Cranston's voice fits Chief so perfectly and I could have watched a three hour long movie devoted entirely to him and his journey to the island and beyond. 

The rest of the group of dogs that assist Atari consists of Rex (Norton), King (Balaban), Duke (Goldblum), and Boss (Murray). All four are close friends and you can tell they've been through a lot together in the 6 months since being deported. They have an easy, loose way of speaking and a habit of voting together on any issue that Chief doesn't agree with, which is most of them. Rex fancies himself the leader, a position Chief doesn't exactly agree with, but there's no hostility among the group. They all seem to appreciate the company of each other and immediately agree to help Atari on his quest to find Spots, a quest that takes them all around the island, forcing them to enlist the help of other strange dogs and confront many dangerous obstacles along the way.

* Rex, Chief, Duke, King, and Boss *

The humor in the film, like with most of Anderson's filmography, is very dry and sometimes subtle. While the majority of the jokes are verbal, some of the most hilarious moments are entirely non-verbal, such as the recurring moments with the dogs sneezing (which reminded me of a similar running gag in Fantastic Mr. Fox showing how the animals eat) or just the characters body language or simply sight gags having to do with the costuming, set design, or camera movements. There are moments of laugh out loud comedy where I was laughing so loud that I probably missed a few lines in the process, but also just a consistent stream of chuckles and amused grins. I felt like I was smiling for almost the whole 100 minute running time - except for the parts where other emotions (anxiety, terror, and shocked disgust) took over. Almost all of Anderson's films have improved for me on subsequent viewings and I'm sure Isle of Dogs will be no different. The movie is so layered and intricately designed that I'm sure I missed some things that will make me appreciate it even more when I watch it another time (or five or ten times) sometime in the future. 

While I don't have a tremendous amount of stop motion films in my personal film library, the work and attention to detail needed to craft them is truly staggering. The intricate details in every moment, every aspect are wondrous to behold. From each dogs' fur to the grass to the smoke and clouds, the littlest things are handled with such precision and care. I can't begin to imagine how long it took the production team to complete the film. Sometimes animated films can look flat, like they were produced with the bare minimum of effort and creativity - I'm looking at you, Illumination, the studio behind lackluster blockbusters like Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing - but that's definitely not the case here. It's a shame that some of those films and others like them routinely make hundreds of millions of dollars, but Isle of Dogs only pulled in $60 million worldwide. The look of the film - it's certainly not bright and glossy like most kid's movies - and the PG-13 rating might have put some people off. I just hope more people discover it at home, like I did.

* Anderson and his clay models for the cast *

There was a mild controversy leading up to the film's release - and maybe it continues on to this day, but I haven't heard anything about it recently - about cultural appropriation. I guess some people didn't think it was right that a white, American filmmaker like Anderson should make a film set in Japan using a lot of white actors. The whole thing seemed silly to me before I saw the film, but after seeing it, it seems completely asinine. I'm not sure any Japanese filmmaker could have made a more lovingly crafted piece of cinema as it pertains to Japanese culture, imagery, or tone. Like I said above, the humans (for the most part) speak exclusively in Japanese and several Japanese traditions - including how sushi is prepared and Sumo wrestling - are shown in striking detail. The cast is about 50/50 American/Japanese and while the dogs (the main characters) are voiced by Americans, who's to say that dogs all over the world don't speak English with various American accents? None of the Japanese characters seemed like stereotypes or exaggerated in any way. Anderson even went as far as to include the Japanese for all the main credits in the opening credit sequence. Hell, even the poster has Japanese writing on it! It seems wrong to me to say that only a person of a particular heritage should be allowed to make films centered on that culture or heritage. In this case, Anderson seems to have put a tremendous amount of time, effort, and passion in creating Isle of Dogs and there's nothing inherently bad about it just because of where he was born and raised.

* An example of the influence of Japanese culture *

As I was about to publish this post, the Academy Award nominations were announced. Isle of Dogs picked up two nominations - Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film. I'm sure it's a long shot to actually win either, but it's certainly deserving of the Best Animated Feature award. As far as the score goes, I can't say that I remember much or anything about it. Some of the soundtrack songs stood out to me, but the score must have flown right under my radar. The Oscars are all about publicity and I'm happy that more people might be exposed to the film because of the nominations.

If I had to point to one "negative" about the film, it'd probably be about the story structure. The subplot taking place back in the city wasn't as fascinating or funny as what was happening on Trash Island, but it was still compelling and had lots of good moments. As I was watching, I kept wishing it would just stay with the dogs, but in the end, everything tied together nicely and I don't know if the film would have been better or worse if the action took place solely on the titular island. I would have missed some of the characters and the intrigue of the conspiracy, that's for sure. I guess in the end, I'm not going to second guess Anderson too much. After all, as is, the film is the best I've seen from 2018, so I probably shouldn't get greedy.

I just wanted to share some more screenshots highlighting the beautiful production design, costumes, and cinematography:

If you're a Wes Anderson fan, I'm sure you'll love Ilse of Dogs. If you're a fan of stop motion animation, you'll probably love it. If you're a fan of dogs, you'll probably love it. If you're just a fan of good movies, you'll probably love it.

Give it a shot sometime soon. You'll probably love it.

I know I did.