Movie Review: “Isle Of Dogs” Is Smart Through And Through, From Haiku To Achoo!

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Set in Japan, “Isle of Dogs” follows a boy’s odyssey in search of his lost dog.

Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) is a tragically orphaned 12-year-old boy, taken in by a very distant uncle who also happens to be the very corrupt mayor of Megasaki City. Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) has orchestrated an insidious plan in cahoots with pharmacology to create a dog flu, spread the dog flu, and thus have a reasonable reason to get the vote of the people to banish all the dogs to an island of trash and refuse. But Atari loves his dog and without understanding the horrible maliciousness of his uncle, he escapes to the airport where he steals a plane and flies a crash landing on the Isle of Dogs…in search of his beloved dog, Spots.

Meanwhile, the dogs have all been eradicated and abandoned to the island of trash where they scavenge for food and fight between packs just to survive. One such pack of mongrels is made up of Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum). (Scarlett Johansson and Frances McDormand also provide familiar voices for viewers.) This group of mangy mutts, through a vote of mutual dissent, decide to protect Atari and help him find his dog Spots. Mayor Kobayashi tries to kidnap the boy back home to a permanent grounding while masterminding the demise of a scientist who successfully creates a formula to cure the dog flu. It is a race against time as the Mayor plots the extinction of every dog and every dog hopes that their masters will all remember them again and rescue them.

But this stop-motion film is so much more. As a typical Wes Anderson film, the storytelling comes with substantial dialogue and rich visual acuity. The humor is subtle, but far from insipid. You will laugh, not because of expected punchlines, but for the uncharacteristic character development that takes you by surprise. The gestures, the ways the eyes spin instead of dart to and fro, the fuzzy clouds of quilt batting that illustrate dirt or a scuffle or a sneeze, the sheer number of Maneki-Neko (good luck cats) in juxtaposition against an island of canine, and the catchphrases more contagious than the dog flu, this film makes it impossible to see it all the first time.

However, don’t worry. It’s absolutely worth seeing more than once.

In select theaters Friday, April 6th