Saturday, September 29, 2018

Isle of Dogs

                                                                                 

I watched "Isle of Dogs" without most English subtitles for the Japanese dog conversations, so my impression may be slanted. It is a sound movie, though the plot development (but not the premise) seems too formulaic to reach to the level of the Wes Anderson's best movies (see my review for "Budapest"). There are typical "Andersonisms" appearing in each of his movies: people running perpendicular to the line of sight. But there are also great cameos--corrupt mayor of the city with the large cat tatoo on his behind--or the hacker in the makeshift tent defeating the mayor poisoners' army when everything seems to be lost. And, of course, the star cast (Murray, Swinton, Goldblum, Balaban, Herwig, Schrieber) "for the love/life of dogs"--what can be better? In the language of Magical Max, only the MLT sandwich.