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Fox Searchlight released the first official clip from Wes Anderson’s upcoming stop-motion animated feature, Isle of Dogs, titled “Okay It’s Worth It.”
The scene has Wes Anderson’s signature vibe alongside the familiar Fantastic Mr. Fox visual style, as two groups of dogs fight over a bag of trash. On paper, that doesn’t sound like the best choice to sell people on your movie, but the loving detail they put into everything onscreen makes even a bag of rotten trash look great.
Interestingly, the clip doesn’t feature the 12 year old boy at the center of the story at all, so I guess we’ll get some Island Dog Society worldbuilding prior to his arrival.
The bit of violence in the clip surprised me. I’d figured this would be another PG outing, but Isle of Dogs will be rolling into theaters with a PG-13 for “thematic elements and violent images.” The clip’s cutesy cotton ball-dustcloud fight followed by a bloody dis-ear-mament probably didn’t earn it any favors with the MPAA.
The official synopsis says that the dogs are quarantined on the titular Island due to ‘dog flu’, and that has me slightly worried this is some kind of hipster version of The Plague Dogs. I get the realistic portrayal of the plight of stray dogs, but I also get super bummed whenever dogs (even animated ones) get hurt in movies. Considering the title is a pun on ‘I Love Dogs’, Wes better come through.
Isle of Dogs opens March 23, 2018.