We’ve reached a point where an animation studio like Pixar can, without too much trouble from the looks of things, produce two feature-length animated films a year. True, that doesn’t make them good or anything, but they do manage to do it somehow. That’s no doubt due to the CGI animation, and that stuff for better or worse is everywhere. But then there’s Laika, the stop-motion animation company that does things the old fashioned way and releases a new movie maybe every three years.
I mean, Wildwood seems to have taken so long to make, director Travis Knight was able to also get Masters of the Universe out this year. Now, Masters of the Universe was an, at-best, mediocre movie, but maybe the New Wildwood would be better.
Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) is 13 going on 42 from the looks of things, tasked with babysitting baby brother Mac, a baby who has apparently never been taken outside in his life. Naturally, Prue thinks that’s ridiculous and takes him outside anyway. While at a playground, a murder of crows swoops in out of nowhere and takes the boy away to the impenetrable forest, a forest on the edge of Portland that, apparently, no one can enter. But for reasons that become clear later, the ivy vines part for Prue and her hapless companion Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), a nervous boy who came along somewhat by mistake. Things get a little strange when they find some coyotes, walking on their hind legs and talking, all while wearing what look like 19th century military uniforms. Worse, these coyotes soon give chase, and the two youngsters are separated.
As it is, both Prue and Curtis run into trouble. Prue falls in with the current Governor (Marc Evan Jackson), but he isn’t very helpful, and then she meets up with other factions in the enchanted forest, most notably the birds led by Prince Owl Rex (Richard E. Grant) and the giant golden eagle the General (Angela Bassett). Curtis, meanwhile, is captured by the coyotes and taken to their leader, the dowager governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan), who sees her late son in the nervous boy. However, the various squabbling factions, including the bandits led by their king (Mahershala Ali) and the mystics that talk to trees all fail to get along all that well. Someone has Mac, and nothing good will come of that fact if Prue can’t find him before it’s too late.
For something like Wildwood, coming as it does from Laika, the one thing I can say for certain is that the movie is both gorgeous and ambitious. There are scenes with dozens of characters moving, all of which shows the same level of detail, and the fact that most if not all of it was done by hand makes it all the more impressive. The story itself, while seeming familiar in places, is fine if not exactly groundbreaking, and despite a voice cast that features some well-known actors, none of them really jumped out to me in any way save Jake Johnson as Prue and Mac’s father and Awkwafina as a talking rat. This was a good story whose execution was perhaps better than the story being told, and given that Knight also directed Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings, I noticed some similarities in the overall themes of both stories.
One thing that did jump out to me was this was actually a pretty violent movie. It’s not afraid to kill off characters, sometimes in violent manners. One is particularly shocking as it comes from seemingly nowhere. These are nameless background characters, and some of what is done would probably get the movie an R rating if it wasn’t animated. I say this mostly as a caution to anyone who is either sensitive to violence or is considering taking a small child. This ain’t no Disney movie when it comes to death.
Grade: A-
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