Review: Visit the Incredible Stop Motion Animated World of 'The Boxtrolls'

Wesley Emblidge ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Assistant Movies Editor

With Pixar off its game lately, the search for quality animated movies that adults can enjoy as well as kids goes to some of the smaller studios. There’s the always reliable Studio Ghibli, and Aardman Animation has had a strong output when they’re working with stop motion. Lately though, the animation studio that has been truly knocking it out of the park is the Portland-based stop motion company Laika. They came out of the gate with Henry Selick’s wonderfully creepy Coraline in 2009, topped themselves in 2012 with the loving ode to zombie movies ParaNorman, and now they’ve struck gold again with The Boxtrolls.
The cynical way to look at The Boxtrolls is that after ParaNorman didn’t even make back its budget, the cute titular monster characters are their version of the Minions from the far more profitable Despicable Me franchise. They don’t speak English (for the most part), they’re good comic relief, and they have an iconic look to them that kids will probably fall in love with. But where the minions are grating and greatly overexposed, these creatures in cardboard boxes are weirder and more lovable than anything a big animation studio would ever attempt. And that’s what makes The Boxtrolls and most of Laika’s films ultimately work: they’re weird. Overflowing with imaginative designs, outlandish comedy, and some of the more fun voice performances in ages, The Boxtrolls might not be Laika’s best film, but it’s their most visually impressive without a doubt.

Very loosely based on Alan Snow’s novel Here Be Monsters!, writers Adam Bava and Irena Brignull throw the trolls into the English town of Cheesebridge, where they live in the sewers by day and roam the streets for machinery to tinker with, all while they’re hunted by the town exterminator Archibald Snatcher (a wonderfully vicious Ben Kingsley). Eggs (Game of Thrones’ Isaac Hempstead Wright) is a boy raised by the boxtrolls, and when he meets the mayor’s daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) they go off to try and save the kidnapped boxtrolls from Snatcher and his identity-crisis-laden henchmen (Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, and the film’s MVP Nick Frost).
The story is fairly basic, but where things get interesting is everywhere else. The characters are eccentric (the cheese and hat obsessed town officials) and the humor is wacky and very similar to that of Aardman’s films. Most importantly though, the team of animators and directors Graham Annable (Open Season) and Anthony Stacchi (previously a storyboard artist at Laika) have conjured up some of Laika’s best visuals yet, creating this entire intricate English town, full of gorgeous cobblestone streets and elegant ballrooms. The underground home of the boxtrolls is full of manic inventions and is introduced to us with the kind of camerawork that most stop motion animators would probably consider impossible.

A lot of the character stuff is hammered home a bit too much, and the movie overall lacks the kind of story ambition of bringing subjects like alternate realities and zombies to kids, but it still does what’s most important: continuing Laika’s trend of bringing quality animation to theaters.
Overall Grade: B+

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