Did you not like Fantastic Mr. Fox?

I couldn't even engage with it. And I'm a Wes fanboy.

I thought it was great

I thought it was ok. Just Wes Anderson weirdness on a script that makes no sense, I guess to play on the stereotype that Japan is weird. I mean how does a pet food manufacturer with 11 factories shut down just because they lose all business in one prefecture? Also, WTF, the title of an elected Mayor gets passed down to next of kin?

@Innovator said:

I thought it was ok. Just Wes Anderson weirdness on a script that makes no sense, I guess to play on the stereotype that Japan is weird. I mean how does a pet food manufacturer with 11 factories shut down just because they lose all business in one prefecture? Also, WTF, the title of an elected Mayor gets passed down to next of kin?

A lot of that weirdness draws from Japanese movies and cartoons of the 1960s. The idea of a boy taking over from his (usually deceased or absent) father or otherwise acting as a controller of vast resources, is central to cartoons like Gigantor, Prince Planet, Marine Boy and many others. The student activists in IoDs will be familiar to anyone who has seen From Up on Poppy Hill and probably a lot of other Japanese stuff. Just as The Life Aquatic played with the Jacques Cousteau 'documentaries' of the 60s and 70s and their weird editing and narratives, Isle of Dogs is a playful homage and satire of late Showa era stuff that made its way, incongruously, onto the TV screens of Western children in the 60s and 70s.

It's a fantasy. don't sweat the absurdities. It's supposed to be fun.

The animation element was one of the few saving graces for me. The dogs all looked fantastic and the animation conveyed fare more emotion than the voice actors.

This was just another in a long line of underwhelming Wes Anderson films for me. Life Aquatic is the the only one I've ever given more than 6/10.

It just seems like the same character combinations and vocal delivery over and over in film after film with promising setups but ultimately 'plots' that I don't engage with and that almost instantly leave my mind as the credits roll. Not my bag personally, but I do give this one an extra point for the art style.

6/10