If the film sometimes bites off more than it can chew, getting too clever for its own good, then perhaps you’ll be forgiving – after all it’s got its heart is in the right place.

Because the invisible thread of kinship connecting a child to a dog is the same one that connects this filmmaker’s vision to our perception of controlled imagery. It is, in essence, a language private and beyond reason. Clearly, for Wes Anderson, all the world’s a postman, and its men and women merely dogs.

Isle of Dogs is disappointing, in the stereotypes it wields, in the history it seems not to care for, in the clever jokes it can’t resist succumbing to, and ultimately in its treatment of the four-legged species it seems devoted to.

Director Wes Anderson’s latest, despite featuring a talented voice cast that includes Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and others doesn’t have his usual bite.

‘Isle of Dogs’ is fast paced, colourful, and an absolute delight all around. And Anderson once again demonstrates that he is among cinema’s all time greats. 

Especially at a time when CGI-heavy visual effects bombard us, it’s indeed heartening to experience an old-school animation film like this. It’s one of the movies that should be experienced on the big screen to truly appreciate all the intricate details that have gone into creating it step-by-step. But it’s also a movie that you’d want to own just to admire its beauty as every screenshot is a work of art worth hanging on your wall.

One can interpret the movie to be about deportation, political scapegoating, and what have you. But in the end, it’s a story about dogs loving their masters and Wes Anderson delivers a beautiful spectacle.

The animation is smooth, the characters are quite vivid and most of the dialogue are lightly comedic. The familiar voice cast helps keep the attachment going…

Wes Anderson packs this magnificent, complex tale with intoxicating imagery…

Overall, despite a stretched narrative of 130 minutes, Isle of Dogs is a thought-provoking film that is worth a watch.

Like Anderson’s 2007 film, The Darjeeling Limited, which set in India, Isle of Dogs has also been accused of cultural appropriation. Beyond the ‘white saviour’ trope of an American exchange student saving the day, one wonders if there’s more to Anderson’s decision of keeping Japanese uninterpreted. There is so much to be read in the film that Anderson’s claim of it originating simply as the story of dogs in a trash island seems like a distant, unimaginable past.