Review of The Boxtrolls (2014) by Rozz R — 04 May 2015

Laika studios have been pumping out quality for years now, with one of my personal favourites Coraline in 2009 and the bold and strange ParaNorman in 2012. In 2015 they gave us The Boxtrolls, and the same that Pixar has since become a reliable standard for quality animation, Laika's trajectory is becoming much the same in the field of stop-motion.

When the Trubshaw Baby is allegedly stolen by the Boxtrolls, a task force is set up to exterminate the lot of them.

The film's premise isn't a hugely difficult one, but as usual it's the world around the story that really grabs the attention, and here Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi have created a rich, strange environment to place their characters. The town of Cheesebridge itself is a quirky, beautiful creation; the whole thing built on a huge skinny peak with cramped house crammed into twisting, turning streets. It's almost steampunk in the way that it looks and the inventions found around the place billow smoke and click and whirr as they trundle through the town. It's a strange and inventive creation which sets the scene for the themes that the film plays with later on. Hierarchy plays a huge role in the concepts of the movie and it's interesting to see how it's reflected in the production design of the piece. Stop-motion is one of the most difficult mediums of storytelling, so it's incredible to see the amount of detail that goes into The Boxtrolls. The Trolls themselves are fantastically individual creations, each with their own personality and look, each one named for the picture on their boxes. The way that they can sculpt a comic beat or inject some real emotion into a moment is completely beyond me and they do it time after time here, making Eggs and Fish and Shoe and Winnie seem like real, breathing creations. At the end of the day, these are plasticine figures, but they never feel like it, and that is an achievement in itself.

On top of that, however, the script deals with some truly deep thematic territory. Most of the allusions to real life examples will probably elude the younger audience, but adults will be able to see the shades of Revolution era France amongst other real life similarities. But for the kids, it's plain enough to see the unfairness at play between the White Hats and the rest of the town, all through the lens of wanting to sit in a room and eat cheese with your peers. It's a clever piece of writing by Irena Brignull and Adam Parva which manages to engage both the target audience and the adults watching it with them. All of these heavier themes never feel that way though, as they're wrapped around a hilarious and thrilling combination of hijinks and humour. There are some truly hilarious jokes and a number of properly moving scenes thrown in and it all ties together in a way that a lot of live-action films never get close to actually achieving.

The voice cast are pretty stellar, and Isaac Hempstead-Wright gives Eggs a just slightly off-centre quality to the character, while Elle Fanning easily steals the show as Winnie, relishing the hell out of her weirdly blood-thirsty character. But the real heroes of the film are the Boxtrolls, and they are a perfect combination of strange and scary and adorable; a fantastic achievement in character creation. Between these guys and Baymax, 2014 was a heck of a year for new animated creations.

Defining Scene:

Even though it's not actually a part of the movie proper, the mid-credits scene is my absolute favourite of the movie. It's so clever and hilarious and inventive, it should be played in every animation class from here to eternity.