Studio Laika is a film studio I hold in high regard, and for good reason. There are very few film studios left that do stop-motion animation and even fewer that make big-time, big-budget movies in the medium. Of course, you have your Aardman Animations, Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment and artists like Ray Harryhausen, who did films like “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” or “Jason and the Argonauts.” Studio Laika, however, has been able to keep the style of animation alive and well throughout the 21st century.
So when I went to see “Wildwood,” I was ready. I parked my butt in that theater seat, got the snacks, watched this movie and it just pissed me off! It ruined my whole week!
But hold on, for those of you who might not have gotten a chance to see this movie, let me break it down for you. The film follows Portland, Oregon, teen Prue McKeel (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee), who, after deciding to ignore her parents’ warnings not to let her baby brother Mac leave the house, does so anyway and subsequently has him abducted by a murder of crows.
Together with her classroom acquaintance, a geek named Curtis Mehlberg (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), the two venture off into the aptly named “Impassable Wilderness,” or the “Wildwood.” Here, they find themselves caught in the middle of a war between the inhabitants of Wildwood and the despicable dowager Governess Alexandra (voiced by Carey Mulligan) with her army of red-coated coyotes. The governess intends to sacrifice Prue’s baby brother in order to reincarnate her dead son, who was taken by the forest ivy.
Right away, I want to say that this is a fantastic-looking film, as are all Studio Laika films. They have truly perfected their craft at this point and have managed to masterfully blend digital effects and stop-motion animation. Dare I say so, it makes “Coraline” look like a 10-year-old’s LEGO stop-motion animation. All the more impressive, seeing as they only started shooting the film in 2021. But I’ve said before, anyone can make a good-looking film nowadays. Even the best studio in its quest for perfect visuals will always leave something lacking. In this case, it was the writing!
The beginning of the movie makes us feel like we’re dropped right into the middle of a story when the characters have just reached their lowest point before the climax. Prue and Curtis’ introduction goes from kind enough to extremely irritating within the first 10 minutes.
The scene in the forest where they were forced to split was beyond forced, as Curtis urges Prue to continue without him and he’s captured by Governess Alexandra. At this point, he just goes back to being a cowardly, sniveling geek for the entire film until the climax. The climax is a big battle sequence, but the road to get there was full of so much character clutter, exposition dumps and fake-out climaxes that you’re ready for the movie to be over by the hour-and-a-half mark.
Now, I did think that the voice actors for this film were very good. I especially enjoyed William Knight, who played the Wild Hog Cabbie. It was the only part of the film that made me laugh. I don’t blame them for their characters stinking; I blame the writers. Sure, Prue is a moody teen and Curtis is a wimpy geek, but that doesn’t mean they have to be entirely unlikable! Plenty of other films did it well.
I think the biggest problem is that this film wants to be so grand, sweeping and amazing all at once, but forgets that it needs to use that two-hour runtime to properly set the pieces up for a satisfying payoff. You know a movie that did? “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” It had the same runtime, great special effects for the time, was based on a book of the same name and was vastly more gratifying to watch for grown-ups and kids alike.
The part where Curtis gets taken by the governess and tricked into thinking she was good? Yeah, that’s ripped from the plot of “Narnia” with Edmund Pevensie and the White Witch. I will die on this hill: For all the bloviation online about this film, “Wildwood” is nothing more than a worse “Narnia.” And you can take that one to the bank.
