Movie Review: Missing Link

Missing Link *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Chris Butler.

Written by: Chris Butler.

Starring: Hugh Jackman (Sir Lionel Frost), Zach Galifianakis (Mr. Link), Zoe Saldana (Adelina Fortnight), Timothy Olyphant (Willard Stenk), Emma Thompson (The Elder), Stephen Fry (Lord Piggot-Dunceby), Amrita Acharia (Ama Lhamu), Ching Valdes-Aran (Gamu), Matt Lucas (Mr. Collick), David Walliams (Mr. Lemuel Lint).

 

Through five films now, Laika Animation has carved out a niche for itself in the usually uniform world of Hollywood animation. They are less interested in the kind of colorful, chaotic energy that move so fast from joke to joke, to chase sequence to action sequence, and back again at breakneck pace – as if kids will get bored if you aren’t constantly jolting them with action and jokes. Laika’s film – Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and now Missing Link – all take their time, are more concerned with the look and feel of the environments they take place in, and the relationships between the characters than anything else. Sadly, while Laika’s films are often far superior to most of what Hollywood produces, they have yet to really land a big box office success. Parents – not the children, who don’t get to decide these things – seem to be avoiding Laika films for some reason. I can speak from experience, that kids love these films – which are often sweet and lovable, while still being inventive.

 

Their latest film centers of Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman), an 19^th Century English adventurer who isn’t respected by the upper crust of English society adventurers. He is a lone wolf sort – he cannot keep an assistant, and has driven away those around him with his obsession with finding mythical monsters (the opening sequence is a wonderful confrontation with the Loch Ness monster). He receives a letter from the New World – telling him the location of the famed Bigfoot. When he arrives, he discovers Mister Link aka Susan (Zach Galifinakis) – who wrote the letter himself. He is the last of his kind, and needs help making his way across the world to Shangri-La – land of his cousins, the Yeti. They will eventually be joined by Lionel’s ex Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana) and pursued by Willard Stenk (Timothy Olyphant) – hired by those evil upper crust English adventurers to prevent Lionel from achieving his goal.

 

The film is just of 90 minutes long, and yet it still moves at what could be called a leisurely pace. Director Chris Butler (one of the directors of ParaNoman) relishes the various locations that he and has team have created – from the foggy Loch in the opening sequence, to the stuffy club of those adventures, to the forest where Mister Link is hiding, to the Western town they stop off at, to the Shangri-La at the end. These environments have been lovingly created by the animators, and Butler makes the most of them. The movie has a laid back quality to its relationship between Lionel and Mister Link as well. You know where it is going – something that starts as transactional, grows into a real friendship – but it never feels rushed here, it feels genuine. The humor in the film is clever and smart, without becoming overly jokey. The action sequences are imaginably staged and fun, without going over the top.

 

I do think that Missing Link is probably a step below Laika’s best work. It looks gorgeous to be sure – but it’s not quite as eye-popping as Kubo and the Two Strings or Coraline, and it’s not quite as original or bold as some of their best work. And yet, compared to most of what is marketed to kids, Missing Link is wonderful and big hearted and funny – and yes, beautiful. It treats its child viewers with respect. And it deserves to find a wider audience than it has found so far. Trust me parents, when you end up putting this on Netflix in a year, you will have wished you watched it in a theater.

DVD Review: ParaNorman

ParaNorman
Directed by: Chris Butler & Sam Fell.
Written by: Chris Butler.
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee (Norman Babcock), Tucker Albrizzi (Neil), Anna Kendrick (Courtney Babcock), Casey Affleck (Mitch), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Alvin), Leslie Mann (Sandra Babcock), Jeff Garlin (Perry Babcock), Elaine Stritch (Grandma), Bernard Hill (The Judge), Jodelle Ferland (Aggie), Tempestt Bledsoe (Sheriff Hooper), Alex Borstein (Mrs. Henscher), John Goodman (Mr. Prenderghast), Hannah Noyes (Salma).

Everything about ParaNorman is delightfully off-kilter. This is a traditional stop motion animated film (with a little help from computers) about a very strange little boy named Norman, who cannot only see dead people all around him, but talks to them. For the most part, these dead people are nice to him – and like having someone to talk to. His dead grandmother hangs out on the couch to keep an eye on him. Everyone in town thinks he’s nuts and more than a little creepy. But when the Witch’s Curse threatens this small New England – still proud of it’s with trail days (or at least not ashamed enough to not use it as a tourist attraction – he may be their only hope.

There is something about stop-motion animation that I like. Unlike the more advanced computer driven animation that dominants children’s films nowadays, stop-motion animation isn’t perfect. The characters are lovingly sculpted by hand, and prone to look and feel imperfect. The same is true for how the characters move – not quite like real people. Computer animation can be great – but there is something I love about the handcrafted feel of stop motion – and it’s just about perfect for ParaNorman.

Norman is not your typical protagonist for an animated children’s film – he isn’t really a plucky, misunderstood, underdog. There is something creepy about him. He’s a nice guy, but he is certainly morose and has an understandable fascination with death. His hair stands straight up on, no matter what he tries to do with it, and his ears stick out funny. Even his own family doesn’t understand him – his father wants him to be normal, his mother loves him, but worries about him, and his older sister is a typical self-involved teenage girl. The only (living) person who likes him is Neil, a tubby kid in his class who finds Norman’s gift fascinating. Everyone else – including the school bully Alvin – hates Norman.

The plot of ParaNorman is fairly typical – a witch is going to release a curse on the town, and Norman is the only one who can stop it. He has to assemble his ragtag group – including Neil, Alvin, his older sister and Mitch, a lovable but lunkheaded jock who is Neil’s older brother. Their journey takes them all over town – including the cemetery a number of times. It is an effective plot, but a fairly by the numbers one.

What I admired about ParaNorman were the visuals, which as I mentioned has a lovable homemade quality to them, and the characters, who neatly skirt around cliché for the most part (not really in the case of the older sister or the bully). I’m glad they’re still making animated films like ParaNorman – aimed at slighter older kids, which treat them with respect, and has a distinct visual look all their own. I tire of many animated films with their concentration on bright colors and non-stop action, but ParaNorman is so lovable, I never grew bored.