'Fantastic'? Almost!

Even though it is about talking animals, it’s animated and it’s rated PG, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” isn’t really a movie for children.

Adults, however, will find it delightful and enchanting -- almost effervescent.

The humor is not risqué, offensive or otherwise improper for children; it’s just that 90 percent of it will be over their heads. The jokes are sophisticated and urbane in precisely the way that children aren’t.

For the last several years, director Wes Anderson’s movies have mostly been about how fabulous and quirky Wes Anderson is (“The Darjeeling Limited,” “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”). But this time out he is working from a book by the preternaturally odd English writer Roald Dahl, and Anderson is helped immeasurably by having an actual story to follow.

This story follows the Fox family and their anthropomorphic wildlife friends as they become embroiled in a war against three mean and powerful farmers. Mr. Fox, who has the voice of George Clooney, is charming and loquacious, a natural leader. Though he is a newspaper columnist and the proud owner of a fancy new hollow tree, part of him still yearns to steal the occasional chicken from a chicken coop -- one of the actions that start the war.

His wife disapproves (Meryl Streep with a fox accent) and gently urges him toward safer paths. Their son Ash (voice by Jason Schwartzman) is considered “different” by other foxes and only wants to be accepted by his father. The father, however, is fonder and more impressed by his athletic nephew Kristofferson, whose voice is courtesy of Eric Anderson. Aware of the rivalry between the younger foxes, the father will eventually try to bond with his son.

Yes, it’s that tired, old, threadbare subplot, trotted out yet again; the subplot filmmakers turn to whenever they want to give their otherwise lacking story a quick dose of feel-good emotion. Reportedly, Anderson and his co-writer Noah Baumbach changed some parts of Dahl’s book and added others -- anyone wanna bet the father-bonding-with-son plot was one of their inventions?

Still, Anderson and Baumbach provide plenty of wit, from using the word “cuss” as an all-purpose cuss word (it even appears as graffiti in one background) to imagining a law firm called Badger, Beaver and Beaver (Mr. Badger is a badger; we don’t meet the Beavers) to having a mole, which is nocturnal, play a swanky version of “Night and Day” on the piano.

And all of this is played out in the difficult and extraordinarily time-consuming medium of stop-motion animation. Using puppets and three-dimensional sets, the crew shot the entire movie two frames at a time, moving the figures ever so slightly between the photographs.

It’s a huge amount of work and it results in animation that is lifelike, yet vaguely surreal. But it was worth it. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is fun, amusing and enchanting.

You can even bring kids to it. But you’ll enjoy it more than they will.