The sky is falling at the multiplex this weekend, with two new movies about indomitable dads trying to survive the end of the world as they know it.  Take your choice between grim and giddy, and between a bunker and a foxhole. The Road is a gruelling post-apocalyptic odyssey based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, with Viggo Mortensen starring as a widowed survivor dragging his son through the barbaric ruins of America. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop-motion animated feature directed by Wes Anderson (Rushmore), with George Clooney voicing the role of Mr. Fox, whose compulsive banditry turns his family into homeless outlaws.  I can heartily recommend both movies, although they offer utterly different experiences. Featuring superb performance from Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays his son, The Road is one of the year’s strongest dramas. But it’s no picnic, to say the least. The Fantastic Mr. Fox, on the other hand is a tonic, a painless treat, and although we have yet to see Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, it stands out as the year’s wittiest animated feature. And in an era of computer generated spectacle, both films have a rare physical realism.

The Road

Like No Country for Old Men, another Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road should make a significant dent at the Oscars, although it’s not as much fun: unlike the Coen brothers’ movie, John Hillcoat’s sombre epic is painted in shades of grey, not noir. It’s set in a world where there’s nothing left of civilization, including its sense of humour. And there’s no villain to speak of, just zombie-like hordes of cannibal vigilantes who roam a barren, burnt-out landscape under a permanently leaden sky. This is no 2012: it’s about an America where the havoc has already been wreaked, without explanation, and no one’s in Kansas anymore. Whether from a nuclear blast or a cosmic collision, this scorched Earth is a dirty, barren mess. There’s no power, no vegetation and virtually no food. Everyone’s a refugee and some of them want to eat you. Continue…