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Wendell & Wild Movie Review

Wendell & Wild is a 2022 animated horror comedy film directed by Henry Selick and starring Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. It is a hugely disappointing flick.

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“Maybe demons aren’t the most trustworthy creatures to make deals with“

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The two devious demon brothers Wendell and Wild have to face their arch-enemy with the help of the nun Sister Helly, who is notorious for expelling demons. However, the brothers are not only plagued by her, but also by her altar boys. ‘Coraline’ is one of the best stop-motion movies of all time, but the rest of Henry Selick’s filmography I find to be either middling or in the case of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ overrated. This one unfortunately continues the middling effort tradition.

It is difficult to get invested in this movie as it’s so chaotic and disorganized. You are never given enough breathing room to take all those ideas and themes in properly. Instead, the movie rushes through its runtime with overly brisk pace and a clear lack of focus that prevented it from ever forming a genuinely well crafted narrative.

Learning to accept the death of a loved one and facing your own demons are the most important themes in a movie that also tries to deal with local businesses, the prison system and so many other themes. None of those got properly explored in this mish-mash of ideas that never worked.

The movie of course got a lot of praise for being diverse, but I don’t care about diversity. All I care about are fully fledged characters and memorable personalities and this movie was quite shortchanged in that aspect. Kat is a bland protagonist, though her arc is moving. The father and sister character are fine, but needed more screen time. Others are all forgettable with the exception of the titular creations played so amusingly by Key and Peele. The two injected a lot of necessary humor into the proceedings.

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Wendell & Wild looks great. Selick actually sought to make a more antique-looking stop-motion feature that wouldn’t be too polished and CGI-resembling, and he succeeded wildly in that area as the movie is genuinely gorgeous and pleasantly retro in its imperfections. The character designs are top-notch. I just wish its soundtrack was more appealing as I personally do not like punk, so I did not care for it one bit.