Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox was one of the most original theatrical releases of 2009. This adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel of the same name was thankfully in the hands of a director who knows almost exactly how quirky and edgy a family-friendly film can be. Combine that with fabulously detailed sets and unusual use of puppet-animation and you have a film that is clever and fun. Younger children might prefer the adventures of Woody and Buzz but for anyone else Fantastic Mr. Fox could be a surprising animal not that it's arrived on Blu-ray.

Want to know more? One of the great advantages of being a home entertainment reviewer is that you can plagiarize the words your theatrical reviewers used if they say pretty much exactly what you would say yourself. With that in mind, here's what CinemaSpy's Kimber Myers said about Fantastic Mr. Fox when she reviewed its threatrical release last year:

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) has ambition. He gave up the life of a bird thief 12 fox years ago (that's two years, to you and me), and he now spends his days as a corduroy-suit-clad newspaperman. He, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), and their rebellious son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), have finally moved up in the world: instead of calling a hole their home, the Foxes are now in a lovely house in a tree.

However, their new home gives Mr. Fox a view of his new neighbors: the evil farmers Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and Bean (Michael Gambon). Their fences are meant to keep foxes and their kind away from their stashes, but Mr. Fox is no ordinary animal. With the help of the sweet but slow opossum Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) and Mr. Fox's athletic nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), Mr. Foxes resumes his life as a thief, against the wishes of his wife and the advice of his lawyer, Badger (Bill Murray). Now, he has to defend himself and his family against Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, who all want their enemy dead.

OK, that's what it's about. Now I may not be as sly as Mr. Fox but to prove that I can be a thief, I shall steal some more of what Kimber said about the film.

Though Fantastic Mr. Fox is presumably children's fare, it bears all the hallmarks of an Anderson film. Of course, Anderson alumni Schwartzman, Murray, and Owen Wilson are all in attendance. Chapters break up the action, fathers and sons clash, and characters feel inadequate while interacting in a meticulously created environment, all set to a vintage-y soundtrack.

But while the previous two Anderson films, The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, were all quirk and no soul, The Fantastic Mr. Fox has a playful spirit that works with, rather than competes against, its highly detailed world. It's at once a film for children that isn't afraid to be serious and a film for adults that isn't afraid to be silly.

I agree entirely. Thank you for letting me use your words, Kimber.

Most of the actors voicing the characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox are known for films aimed at an adult audience. The fact that Anderson didn't ask them to dumb themselves down in a pointless attempt to increase appeal to younger viewers typifies the directors approach to the entire film. Although it is based on a children's book, Anderson appreciates that Dahl also has his adult admirers. It is a credit to Anderson, too, that the mash-up of British and American actors, animals and idioms never seems odd.

It should also be said that Anderson makes fabulous use of Alexandre Desplat's musical score and a great selection of songs from a range of artists that includes The Rolling Stones, Burl Ives and The Beach Boys. The musical cues are inserted at just the right points to add energy and impetus or to contribute to a kind of cheekiness that pervades the whole film. These qualities as much as any made me want to like  Fantastic Mr. Fox even when I felt that it was sagging slightly in the middle.

Disc details: Fantastic Mr. Fox is a film with two particularly striking visual qualities: detail and texture. There are fine details in the sets, there is the fur in the animal's coats and there is the stitching in their clothing. Texture, meanwhile, is an inherent quality of the decision to use puppets rather than conventional computer or hand-drawn animation. It is evident in the material their clothes are made of, in the stylized model landscapes (complete with  grass waving in the wind) and in the many objects that fill out the elaborately constructed indoor sets. There is no better way to appreciate these qualities than on Blu-ray. The high resolution of the format does justice to the effort the filmmakers clearly put in to give literal and figurative depth to every aspect of this movie.

In terms of special features, the hi-def release has a decent but not outstanding selection on offer. The most substantial is 'Making Mr. Fox Fantastic'. As the title suggests, this is a behind-the-scenes documentary that looks at the making of the film. It is actually a set of six featurettes that can be played in sequence using the Play All option. When viewed like together, they run for about 45 minutes in total. The individual featurettes consider Anderson's approach to adapting Dahl's novel ('The Look of 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'), the challenge of adapting a short story into a feature film ('From Script to Screen'), the making of the puppets that are the film's stars ('The Puppet Makers'), the complicated process of stop-motion animation ('Still Life (Puppet Animation)') and the films renowned voice actors ('The Cast'). The last featurette is presented by star Bill Murray, who plays Mr. Fox's badger lawyer. Murray talks to some of the animators and his enthusiasm for their work is clear.

Aside from 'Making Mr. Fox Fantastic' the only other bonus features are the pointlessly brief 'Beginner's Guide to Whack-Bat' (whack-bat is a game featured in the movie and amusingly explained therein by Owen Wilson's character), the slightly longer featurette 'Fantastic Mr. Fox: The World of Roald Dahl' (which feels like an outtake from 'Making Mr. Fox Fantastic') and a brief set of trailers, only one of which is for Fantastic Mr. Fox. A surprising omission is an audio commentary. I suspect that the average movie viewer doesn't listen to these anyway, but Anderson's film is unusual enough that his fans and many people interested in modern movies would probably have appreciated a scene by scene commentary by the filmmakers. Perhaps that will come in a Special Edition down the road.

The other thing worth noting about the bonus features is that most of them are also on the DVD. The standard definition release does lack some of the featurettes that make up 'Making Mr. Fox Fantastic'. Therefore, if you are not interested in the making of the film, you won't miss much where bonus features are concerned.

Despite the omission of an audio commentary and the otherwise relatively limited selection of extras, I don't hesitate to recommend the Blu-ray version of this film. The added visual quality makes hi-def worth every extra penny. Plus, if you buy the combo version I reviewed here, you will get the DVD and a Digital Copy with it, too.

Anything else? Fantastic Mr. Fox could be seen as a kind of antithetical cousin to Chicken Run. Both films use stop motion animation, both have British origins but a leading role played by a charming American actor and both feature talking animals as principal characters. The difference is that in Chicken Run the titular birds are the heroes. In Mr. Fox they are nothing more than a faceless object that that dies to satisfy the hubris of Vulpus vulpus (by the way, Wes, species names are not capitalized). On behalf of chickens everywhere I cry fowl!