Review of The Boxtrolls (2014) by Jon T — 06 Feb 2015

The title characters of Laika's latest stop-motion animated puppet feature are described by a rather disreputable, bloated baddie as dangerous, monstrous creatures who eat children. Naturally, the opposite turns out to be true.

The monsters in question, "box trolls", literally, trolls who are dressed in boxes (no, seriously!) often scavenge across town looking for metal pieces to build their own amusement park underground.

And have in truth adopted a boy as one of their own. At times it's hard not to mistake this movie as THE JUNGLE BOOK or TARZAN for kids in an urban environment, yet the parallels between the two movies becomes more obvious when the human boy, named Eggs, suddenly crosses paths with a human girl his own age.

The scenes in which our young hero awkwardly stumbles into the girl's home while trying to rescue his friends are quite amusing. It also has shades of a Raold Dahl story, particularly in the doings of the film's revoltingly pompous baddie, Archibald Snatcher, and the weird, macabre setup.

(The tone of the movie also feels British, as well.) The real attraction to THE BOXTROLLS, of course, is the richly-detailed stop-motion animation. Like CORALINE and PARANORMAN, this movie is an eye candy of the sort of nostalgic, old-fashioned animation one seldom sees today.

Having said that, THE BOXTROLLS probably ranks on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of Laika's track record; it's less edgy and often times verges between juvenile and adult humor. Nonetheless, there's still much to enjoy in this film; the trolls themselves (who speak mostly gibberish and often communicate with gestures than words) being some of the most endearing protagonists in any animated film to date, and a ballroom sequence as well as a cross dressing change a technical tour-de-force.

As usual, the voice acting is excellent and very fitting, with an unrecognizable Ben Kingsley as Snatcher, and Elle Fanning delightfully exercises her sassy side and speaks with a surprisingly convincing British accent.

The comical villain sidekicks are also not annoying at all, but arguably interesting. All in all, even a lesser Laika effort is still enjoyable, and THE BOXTROLLS demonstrates why.