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The Boxtrolls Movie Review

The Boxtrolls is a 2014 animated family fantasy film directed by Graham Annable and starring Ben Kingsley. It’s one of Laika’s weakest efforts.

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“You bit me. With your mouth“

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Eggs befriends Winnie. Together, they devise a plan to save the Boxtrolls living beneath the streets of Cheesebridge city from the evil eyes of an exterminator. The story overall is charming, there is no denying that. It’s by far Laika’s most kid-friendly movie and never as mature as all of their other films, but it’s unquestionably pleasant and endearing in its old-fashioned type of storytelling and characterization.

The movie is mostly a family comedy of sorts that is only fantastical in the premise alone, but for the most part it’s kind of a period piece that strongly makes use of its time period, but more on that later. I found the overall plot definitely cute and solid, but far from anything truly great or substantial as it’s rather predictable and again lacking any sophistication to it.

Let’s now talk about the characters. I actually really liked some of the characters in this movie, though others are not great admittedly so. Eggs is your typical unlikely protagonist in this kind of movie as this human boy who was raised by the Boxtrolls and he now gets to meet the humans on the surface for the first time. That scenario is also been there, done that.

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I also found Winnie not that memorable, though admittedly the scenes between these two are all rather good and fun as they both share some pretty good dynamic with each other. As for the trolls themselves, I found their design excellent and they are all so endearing and cute. But again, none of them are particularly well developed, leading to a movie that fails to adapt its titular creatures properly in favor of much better adapted human characters. I never liked that in fantasy movies, and unfortunately here it’s a strong example of that.

I actually loved Archibald Snatcher. He is this ruthless pest exterminator, but what makes him more memorable and fun than other similar villains lies in him basically cross-dressing throughout the movie. Madame Frou-Frou is ridiculously ugly and hilarious. And I did find him rather competent as a villain. He’s by far the best thing about this movie besides the animation of course. I just wish the voice performances were better as the main two performers for the kids sound way too adult and not good at all.

Speaking of the animation, it’s excellent. It’s a cliché to say that the animation in a Laika movie is fantastic, but it has to be repeatedly stated as these movies are so lovingly crafted that they really need more love from the mainstream audiences. I have actually seen more than a couple of clips about the making of The Boxtrolls and they only further reminded me just how creative the stop-motion animators need to be to pull this strenuous technique in animation.

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The result is a wonderfully quirky, again delightfully old-fashioned flick that is gorgeous in some of its sets while being particularly terrific at character designs. The trolls in particular look fantastic and quite varied. All are so cute. And the humans also look good while the color palette is charming too. The score is forgettable, though. The direction is weak, the dialogue is only okay and the themes are thoroughly absent. It’s a very slim, but solid flick.

The Boxtrolls is undeniably endearing in its titular characters and an old-fashioned approach to storytelling. The villain is delightfully over-the-top and memorable, but the voice performances aren’t great. The stop-motion animation here is so wonderful and endearing. But the movie is slim thematically speaking and it’s simply never as mature as Laika’s other efforts.