Last week, I went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox at the cinema; a film based on one of my favourite children’s books by Roald Dahl. Having thoroughly enjoyed the book, I was pleased to find myself enjoying the film as well – although the differences in plotline did catch my attention. For the sake of nostalgia and to be appropriate to modern cinema, I thought I’d recap on Roald Dahl’s book. So here is a quick review of Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl.

Every family needs to eat and, being that foxes are carnivorous beats, Mr. Fox is forced to steal chickens and geese from local farmers to support his wife and children. These aren’t ordinary famers either; these are the three meanest farmers around – Boggis, Bunce and Bean (one fat, one short, one lean). As time goes by, these farmers get so frustrated with Mr. Fox stealing their livestock that they set out to slay him – waiting outside his foxhole one night, determined to shoot him down.

Luckily for our hero, he manages to escape the trap, but loses his beloved tail in the crossfire. Infuriated by their failure, the three farmers pursue Mr. Fox, using shovels, bulldozers and teams of men to hunt him down –trapping the fox family underground. Stuck and starving, the foxes find themselves in a sticky situation for three longs days, with neither food nor water. Eventually Mr. Fox hatches a plan and, using their exceptional digging skills, the family digs a tunnel underneath the farmers and into Boggis’ chicken house!

Meeting the other animals along the way, Fantastic Mr. Fox recruits his friends and together they dig a system of underground tunnels into all three farms; creating an easy way to steal chickens, geese, turkeys and cider from the nasty farmers. Outside the foxhole, however, Boggis, Bunce and Bean never stop waiting for Mr. Fox to show up.