In a day where we can have a computer or an AI model lazily generate “animated” stories, it can be easy to forget what kind of magic stop-motion can bring to our cinemas. Laika Studios, known for their independent stop-motion animation with films like Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link, have spent around sixteen years painstakingly hand-crafting and designing what would be their grandest achievement in animation yet: Wildwood.
With around 136 different sets, 231 practical puppets, and “as many as 24 printed faces per puppet per one second of film”, Wildwood will impress you from its opening shot. Stop-motion to a level this professional has an astounding quality to it where the closer you look, the more you can see the immaculate details and the fringes of material, but are never pulled out by its artifice. The animation has such impressive fluidity that it almost becomes hard to register as actually hand-crafted with how expressive these characters are.
Wildwood finds a link to a few other Laika films with an introduction to a magical world, but one with a darkness surrounding it. Initially captivating, its wonders are soon traded for treachery and peril as the burdens of our world are not just on us. We meet young Prue McKeel (a top-tier fantasy name, may I add) with her bohemian family in Portland, Oregon. After an angry murder of crows whisks her little brother away into the woods (a scene that alone took five years to complete), Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) must find a way to bring him back. Travelling into the “impassable woods” that line the Portland scenery, Prue and unexpected companion Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) find themselves in a new world, with talking animals, grand magic, and a tumultuous civil conflict. Thrown in at the deep end, Prue and Curtis must stop the evil Dowager Governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan) from sacrificing Prue’s brother for her own gain.
What sets Wildwood apart from a few of its stop-motion compatriots is its more ominous tone and its relationship to violence. Right from the start, director Travis Knight wants us to consider heavier themes like loss and sacrifice and use them as the story unfolds. As Prue and Curtis enter this strange world, the violence that surrounds them is not often treated as fiercely heroic. While we may look up to the bandit heroes here like Brenden (Mahershala Ali) or Niamh (Amandla Stenberg), Knight doesn’t make killing so easily forgettable for these characters and for us as an audience.
Where Wildwood doesn’t quite keep up its bargain is with how this world and this overall story are narratively presented. Though the longest and likely the biggest of Laika’s features, I couldn’t help but feel a few missing pieces for this to come together as smoothly as I’d hoped. For how essential the ivy and natural growth are to this story, it never feels to get its due for how it resonates within this magical world. Some sequences appear to have a conceptual gap that can make transitions a tad loose and can slightly break up the momentum of this fantasy. It still gets a lot out of numerous character arcs and culminates rather satisfyingly, but doesn’t quite reach a level of true catharsis with its main conflict that had me momentarily disappointed.
But it’s almost impossible not to relish what this animation team and Knight have done with this climax here. Without getting too far into spoilers, this tale comes to a fearsome head as Alexandra and the free-folk armies clash in one of the most astounding spectacles of animation cinema ever put to a camera. A sequence like this puts genuine live-action battle scenes to shame in how carefully the camera, character models, and effects are all coming together to fully immerse you in this jaw-dropping finale. Even just one single frame from this over ten-minute scene is worth the tender care and passion of so many talented artists. Though it can be tough to take yourself out of the action, it’s essential to take the time to appreciate what was done to get to this point.
We don’t get many movies like this due to their extreme difficulty and time commitment to create. But in the age of non-stop AI implementation, it’s so nice to see Knight and the wonderful creators at Laika do things the hard way for the sake of artistic endeavor. If you want movies to keep being made with the immense passion and care shown here, go out to the theaters and support it. With something like Wildwood, it’s absolutely worth your time.
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