Something dawned on me as I was watching Isle: Anderson has a baker's approach to his filmmaking. He's precise, and obsessive-compulsive in his attention to detail. He's also been essentially serving up the same extravagantly decorated filmic cakes since 1998. So what makes it so special anymore? The answer is: very little. Other filmmakers with a chef's mentality are more willing to try something new and experiment, even if that means failing, and Anderson's stubborn baking background prevents him from going out on a limb. Unfortunately, Isle of Dogs kinda finds him chasing his own tail a bit.

I don't mean to say that Isle isn't a good film because it's a perfectly fine and technically sound offering; however, Anderson's style has become so standard and commonplace that he's lost the ability to blow me away. Even the stop-motion animation turf is previously treaded terrain, and I think it was done with much greater affect in 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox, which manages to elicit more pathos and heart than Isle is really able to muster. Sure, it has it's touching moments, but they're fewer and further between.