As amazing as Wes Anderson‘s live-action movies have been since the beginning (and only getting better as they go–The Grand Budapest Hotel stands as my all-time fave of his), there’s something magical about his 2009 stop-motion animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, based upon the Roald Dahl book of the same name. This is why we’ve been champing at the bit, as it were, for Anderson’s animated follow-up, which we’ve known for awhile would be called Isle of Dogs. But what would the film be about? What kind of Andersonian things would happen in it? And who would be voicing all of the many dogs? Well, the first trailer arrived on Thursday and answered all our questions (and prayers).
A sort of near-future sci-fi movie, the narrator (voiced by the brilliant Courtney B. Vance) explains that Japan’s dog population had become ridden with “dog flu” and all of them were gathered and deposited on Trash Island. Several of the dogs (voiced by the likes of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, and others) have reached the end of their tether when a little boy flies a stolen–and seemingly not air-worthy–old airplane and travels to the island in order to find his own missing pooch. It appears to become an adventure of fairly fiery proportions from there as the boy is aided by the titular island dogs, while a girl with Marie Antoinette-inspired hair follows along from across the globe.
There was a delightful jankiness to the animation in Mr. Fox that aided that story’s execution, but while Isle of Dogs retains the type of wily-eyed character design from the previous film, this trailer makes the animation itself look smooth and rather epic. And the voice cast looks just as robust and talented as we’d expect from any Anderson production, with staples like Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, and would-be immortal clown Tilda Swinton all turning up. Hell, you know it’s an impressive cast when you have Scarlett Johansson AND Yoko Ono in your movie.
Isle of Dogs is set for release March 23, 2018. Let us know which doggo is the goodest doggo in the comments below!
Images: Fox Searchlight
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
