In their first movie in 7 years, stop-motion animation powerhouse Laika delivers what has been made out to be their magnum opus, but does it match the hype?
Stop-motion animation has always had a special place in my heart. Growing up, not only was I exposed to the likes of Shaun the Sheep from a young age, but, being half Bristolian, stop motion is instrumental in my city’s culture, thanks to the local-based Aardman. As I entered my teens, I started to be introduced to a more mature stop-motion animation studio called Laika, and, upon first watching Coraline, the studio earned my eternal respect. Stop-motion animation in cinema is struggling, with movies never really performing well at the box office despite critical acclaim, so I admire Laika’s perseverance and dedication to their hand-crafted style, refusing to give in to the allure of the cheaper to produce and easier to market CG Animation.
In their new film Wildwood, Laika head Travis Knight returns to the director’s chair in his first animation since 2016’s Kubo and The Two Strings, after a brief foray into the live action blockbuster with the Transformers prequel Bumblebee (2018) and the god-awful He-Man reboot Masters of the Universe earlier this year. The film follows teenager Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) as she defies her crafts fair loving hippie parents (Maya Erskine and Jake Johnson) to take her infant brother Mac to the park with her nerdy classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay). Whilst there, Mac is mysteriously kidnapped by a murder of crows, leading Prue and Curtis to venture into a mysterious Dark Forest ruled by the grieving tyrannical leader Alexandra (in an exceptional role by Carey Muligan). In the forest we are introduced to bandits led by Mahershala Ali’s Brendan and an army of coyotes who do Alexandra’s bidding, with perhaps my favorite character lying amongst them in the coyote Dimitri (played by Charlie Day).
On paper, Wildwood seemed like it was going to be exceptional. Early reviews were hailing it as Laika’s Magnum Opus, the voice cast looked exceptional and the story looked promising. However, after having seen the movie, I’m here to answer that question on oh so many reader’s minds, ‘Is the movie actually any good?’
Yes, very much so.
This is a triumph for stop-motion animation, with Wildwood being the longest running stop-motion film of all time, clocking in at just over 2 hours 10 minutes. The action sequences sprinkled throughout the film, particularly the final 20 minutes, are all jaw-dropping and a marvel to gaze at and really speak to just how much hard work goes into stop-motion, with each frame having to be set up by hand. There’s a reason why this film took 4 years to shoot. At many points throughout the film, I found myself grinning from ear to ear with how satisfying the film looked, a satisfaction I believe solely lies in the knowledge that each shot has taken hours to be set up by an animator. In my opinion, this level of satisfaction is difficult to find in cinema these days outside of animation.
The voice acting as well is top notch. I couldn’t find one loose cog in this perfect machine of B and A list actors alike. This quality is what I think Laika excels at, they manage to entice competent A list actors such as Charlize Theron and Sir Ben Kingsley to portray their leading parts, whilst getting smaller, more often comic, B list actors like Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Richard Ayode to voice the supporting roles. This combination results in some of the best voice acting you will see in animation. Wildwood is no exception, with Carey Mulligan, Charlie Day, Mahershala Ali and Peyton Elizabeth Lee amongst the standouts here. Laika even managed to get two good performances out of comedians Awkwafina and Jermaine Clement, two actors who I have many times voiced my disdain for in the past, but I felt were decent enough here in their quite minor roles.
However, as much as I would love to sing Wildwood’s praises for this entire review, there is quite an evident problem lying in its central narrative. Wildwood is certainly better written than other Laika movies, relying more on visual humour than the typical unfunny pun for its comic relief, but has a much weaker narrative than say Kubo or Coraline. This isn’t a case of there not being enough story to satisfy the over 2-hour runtime, on the contrary I think there is too much story than Laika knows what to do with. Wildwood is adapted from a massive 541-page novel by Colin Meloy, which is a difficult page count to successfully adapt to a 131-minute film. We need only look at films like David Lynch’s Dune to know that these kinds of feats are difficult to pull off successfully in the relatively small runtime of a movie. As a result of this tight runtime, characters and plot points often feel rushed or ignored until the climax, limiting the pleasure a spectator can achieve from this on a narrative level. What I would’ve much preferred to see was this novel adapted to a Lord of the Rings style trilogy, with characters and world building getting more fleshed out, before culminating in a massive 1-hour long battle scene in the final movie. But, given Wildwood’s dismal opening weekend box office numbers, I can understand why Laika opted for one film instead of a whole trilogy, like I said earlier this film alone took 4 years to make.
Ultimately, if my main critique of your movie is that I wanted to see more instead of less, that’s a really good sign. Wildwood is an animation triumph that deserves all the praise it has achieved, and I wish Laika all the best in exploring their bigger projects in the future, how you top this I’m excited to see.
4 Stars.
Wildwood is out in cinemas now
