The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

I first heard about The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales (French: Le Grand Méchant Renard et autres contes…) when I stumbled upon it while browsing the Shout! Factory website, then read about it further through the GKIDS website. What really captured my attention was the unique art style and the premise of the title story, in which a fox ends up mothering chicks while raising them to be food. I then found out that it was partly based on a graphic novel, The Big Bad Fox by co-director Benjamin Renner, and that Renner had also been a director on the acclaimed French animated film Ernest & Celestine, which also caught my interest. Sometime later, I received both The Big Bad Fox and The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales as a birthday gift, deciding to read the original comic before watching the movie to see how accurate the adaptation was. Regardless of its creative liberties, I absolutely enjoyed the movie and thought it worked perfectly on its own merits.

The movie is presented as an anthology of three stories tied together with the framing device of a stage production hosted by the fox. The first of these segments, Baby Delivery (based on Benjamin Renner’s graphic novel A Baby to Deliver; French: Un bébé à livrer), concerns the misadventures of Pork (Justin Edwards), Bunny (Adrian Edmonson) and Duck (Bill Bailey) as they try to deliver a baby in place of a Stork (Phil Whelans), who crashed into an apple tree on their farm. I found this segment to be overall funny and a bit heartfelt towards the end, though I suspected at one point that something may have been cut out from the comic it was based on, due to a bit of dialogue from Pork mentioning a bull encounter that didn’t happen. However, I am unable to read said comic to confirm this since it never received an official English translation.

The second segment, The Big Bad Fox (based on Benjamin Renner’s graphic novel The Big Bad Fox; French: Le Grand Méchant Renard), tells the story of a Fox (Giles New) who is unable to scare anyone on the farm near the forest and is given the idea by the Wolf (Matthew Goode) to steal eggs so they can eat the chicks later. However, things go awry when the eggs hatch and the chicks think the fox is their mother. Having read the original graphic novel shortly before watching the movie, I could tell that it was more or less a condensed version of the story, since I could tell a number of scenes were either cut or altered in order to streamline the narrative and fit it into a shorter timeframe. Regardless, this did not take away from the humor in the story or the emotional impact of some scenes, especially ones where it was evident that the Fox had grown emotionally attached to the chicks and didn’t want to let them go.

The third and final segment, Saving Christmas, is an original story centering on the primary characters from Baby Delivery, in which the Duck and Bunny attempt to save Christmas after believing they had killed Santa (in reality a Christmas decoration). While it is a fairly unique Christmas story with a lot of laughs, it also provides some character development for Pork, as he learns to give the more childlike Duck and Bunny some space to sort problems out on their own. Some characters from The Big Bad Fox also appear, though they are relegated to quick cameos rather than having any part in the story.

The Fox (Giles New) bonds with the chicks who were supposed
to be his prey.

There's a a very consistent “French countryside” atmosphere throughout each of the three segments, with the farm serving as a way to tie everything together. I’ve read that the movie was originally conceived as a trio of half-hour TV specials, and the framing device and general runtime for each story lend some credence to this since the movie runs a little under 90 minutes. Regardless, the narrative of each portion is just the right length and I feel that adding in any additional material from The Big Bad Fox into its adaptation may have come off as padding in this format.

Like its predecessor Ernest & Celestine, The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is animated in Tradigital style, where every frame is hand-drawn in Adobe Flash in order to replicate the feeling of traditional animation. This results in some very fluid animation that perfectly replicates Benjamin Renner’s art style, though some small liberties were taken to make the designs more animation-friendly, including giving each of the chicks in The Big Bad Fox segment a different appearance to make them more visually distinct. The watercolor aesthetic works with this, contributing to the “French countryside” feel of the film. Knowing the original language was French, I could also tell at times that the mouth flaps of the characters were done with the French audio track in mind, especially during the Baby Delivery portion, though some signage written in French also serves as a reminder of this.

As I opted to watch the English dub, my judgements on the voice acting are based on that and not the original French audio. I will note, however, that the English Blu-ray I watched the movie on also contains the original French language track as an audio option, should one choose to view it that way.

That said, the voice acting in the English dub is really good at capturing the spirit of the characters, with the British voice cast giving it a bit of a European flair and some occasional French words added into dialogue to match with the French setting. Of the voice actors I had some familiarity with, Matthew Goode (of Watchmen and Downton Abbey fame) did a really good job voicing the Wolf, portraying a menacing character who had still had some funny moments of his own. Giles New, known for playing Murtogg in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, proved to be the perfect choice for the Fox, capturing his moments of varying desperation as well as his increasing attachment to the chicks he raised.

Before I end this review, I thought it worth mentioning that, as a fun surprise, the credits include a recipe for crepes that can easily be missed if you're not looking for it.

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales is an animated movie I would highly recommend. The animation is spectacular with its fluid watercolor style and it handles its subject matter in a very charming and heartfelt manner. I would also recommend the graphic novel The Big Bad Fox for those who haven’t read it, as it offers a different experience from its animated version, though its adaptation is a well-made story on its own that keeps the idea of the story and the spirit of the original comic intact.