Isle of Dogs Plot Summary:
Years into the future, Megasaki City in Japan has exiled all dogs to a deserted wasteland known as Trash Island due to a raging dog flu epidemic. One local boy (Koyu Rankin) flies to the island in search of his dog Spots (Liev Schreiber), while a group of protestors unite against Mayor Kobayashi’s (Kunichi Nomura) anti-dog mandate.
If you take anything away from this review, let it be this: Go see this movie. It’s very good. That’s also the problem. Isle of Dogs is obviously better than your average film. Way better. Having said that, I’m not going to play this game where I view it in the bubble of a regular movie. This is Wes Anderson. Are there a lot of great elements at play here? Oh, hell yes. The characters are remarkable. The voice acting lives up to its billing. The visuals and animation are ridiculous. The music by Alexandre Desplat may be better than the scores he won Oscars for.
At the end of the day though, it’s just not a great film, and it really should have been.
Within the first ten seconds, you know you’re watching a Wes Anderson film, per usual. The opening musical number that blares through the speakers as we go down the embarrassment of riches that is this cast was spectacular.
The first 20 minutes were everything I thought this movie could be. These poor dogs are immediately dropped onto this horrible and disgusting place that looks like all four Mad Max movies rolled into one. Trash Island sucks. The dogs become sick, aggressive, malnourished and depressed. In vintage Wes Anderson fashion, it’s sad, funny and visually stunning all at once.
What’s also vintage Wes Anderson are the characters. We focus on a group of five main dogs. The dynamic and interplay between these characters is filmmaking at its finest. They form such a chemistry, I would have been entertained if they sat around and did nothing for five minutes. You got Bob Balaban (King), Edward Norton (Rex), Bill Murray (Boss) and Jeff Goldblum (Duke) all on top of their game. The first time Jeff Goldblum speaks simply put a smile on my face. All these dogs have their own ticks (not literally) and subtle personality quirks. What makes them such a great ensemble is they all have different backgrounds specific to dogs. It’s genius. The one stand out though was their leader, Chief. Welcome to Team Anderson, Bryan Cranston.
Bryan Cranston is by far the best part of this movie. Chief is a top ten Wes Anderson character. He’s very different from his friends, but you immediately find out why. It’s a simple, yet great hook. Perfect. Wes Anderson creates a seamless tragic backstory for a dog, but layers it even further when Chief tells this complicated, yet depressing tale later in the film. It’s so well written for a character who’s a dog, it makes you wonder if Wes Anderson was actually a dog in a former life. The understanding he has for the soul of this character was incredible.
Along the way, we meet many great characters on Trash Island. Scarlett Johansson plays Nutmeg, a former show dog. After her work in Her and now this, Scarlett Johansson has become a master at voice acting. Her personality seeps through the screen. Her and Chief have a beautiful first conversation. The animation here is also gorgeous. There’s a simple moment where Nutmeg tilts her head to the screen that alone should merit a Best Visual Effects nomination.
One of the dogs who will no doubt be a fan-favorite is Oracle, voiced by Tilda Swinton. She’s a one gimmick character, but the gimmick is really funny. Every time she spoke, the audience belted out a true gut laugh. There’s a lot of great long running gags, in particular with Jeff Goldblum’s character.
Now this is where I have to be a Debbie Downer. As great as these characters were, and as invested as I was in their pain and exile, the overall plot falls flat on its face. Anytime the movie shifts away from the dogs on Trash Island into Megasaki City, I simply lost interest. There’s all this hoopla about cover ups, scientists, dog flu cures, military experiments and exposition on the level of Green Lantern, it takes away from the intimate personal stories Wes Anderson was telling.
Other than Chief, the true protagonist of the film is Atari, the boy who flees to the island in search of his dog, Spots, voiced brilliantly by Liev Schreiber, to the point where he was unrecognizable. This is a perfect plot. Simple. A boy wants his dog back. It also blends into Atari forming a bond with Chief, which is the best part of the movie. Once we get into the latter half of the film though, it loses this emotional arc for a more cluttered, meandering cliché storyline.
It’s not that there isn’t anything to like with the Megasaki City scenes. Greta Gerwig fully commits to her role as the exchange student activist, and Kunichi Nomura as the twisted mayor is menacing as all hell. Having said all that, this movie could have been better served if it took place entirely on the island. Focus on the dogs trying to survive with Atari searching for Spots sprinkled in. That should have been the movie. It’s unfortunate that an over packed plot bogged it down.
There are so many great relationships that could have been explored more, such as the rivalry between Chief and Rex, or one of the romantic subplots that is criminally underserved. The ending is also resolved WAY too quickly, to the point where it felt like they wrote it five minutes before I walked into the theater.
For the majority of the film, Wes Anderson is in the zone. Courtney B. Vance has joined the ranks of great Wes Anderson narrators. Frances McDormand’s role is brilliant. I also loved how there were no subtitles whenever a character spoke in Japanese. You have to get it from context.
This very well could have been a case of over hype. I have no doubt when I see the film again, I’ll probably like it more. I like this film a lot. I just didn’t love it.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (Very Good)
