Laika is one of my favorite animation studios (possible top 5 animation studios at least). No offense to Aardman, but Laika is probably the king of stop motion animation in my opinion. The fact that their studio is located Oregon (aka my home state) and near my birth city Portland makes the studio feel more personal to me. Their latest film which was my most anticipated film of the year is Wildwood based on the book of the same name by author Colin Meloy and illustrator Carson Ellis (who I saw at a special screening of this film). Wildwood is about a teenage girl named Prue who lives with her family in Portland Oregon. Against her parents’ wishes, she takes her baby brother Mac outside to explore Portland but a swarm of crows suddenly swarm Mac and take him into an enchanted forest called the Impassable Wilderness. She and her classmate Curtis must enter the mysterious Impassable Wilderness to save her baby brother from the exiled governor Alexandra who wants to use Mac for a sinister plot.
Wildwood has a much more mature and adult tone compared to the other Laika films and even recent animated films in general. SPOILER WARNING: The film literally opens with a “child” committing suicide. A lot of characters also die very gruesomely, not just background characters but main characters too. There was one character death during the climax that actually shocked me (if you’ve seen the film you’ll know who it is). There’s a good reason this film got a PG-13 rating. I thought the worldbuilding in this film was very well done and takes a lot of inspiration from the Portland area. The film is 132 minutes long and it perfectly uses that runtime to let us explore and breath in this new world and interact with the unique factions.
The characters in this film are really great with Prue and Curtis having great character arcs, but the biggest standout has to be the villain, Alexandra. She is an absolutely fantastic villain thanks to Carey Mulligan’s outstanding performance and her facial animation! What’s also amazing about her is how complex of a villain she is. Alexandra isn’t just some evil villain doing evil things just for the hell of it, she is a mother who’s been consumed by grief after losing her son and ending up exiled after attempting to make a robotic replacement of him with dark magic who committed suicide after finding out he was a robot. Despite having such a tragic backstory, it absolutely does not excuse all the horrible things she does in the film especially the fact that she is willing to sacrifice Prue’s brother (who is a baby btw). She is the perfect example of how to do a tragic but irredeemable villain and you don’t see many animated films especially lately accomplish this. She’s kind of like the stop motion equivalent of Rameses from the Prince of Egypt (another fantastic villain that’s both tragic but also irredeemable).
Of course, I couldn’t just end the review without talking about the animation. Laika’s films always have some of if not the best animation of any stop motion film but Wildwood has pretty much taken the crown for the best stop motion animation not just from Laika but from stop motion films in general! Wildwood has a more realistic look compared to the other Laika films and while I do like the cartoonish look of the other films, I think the more realistic look here helps the film feel more unique. The attention to detail on everything in this film such as the textures on the characters, costumes, props and sets are absolutely outstanding. The Portland scenes near the beginning. You can tell the animators put a lot of love, care, and effort into animating this whole film. The climax in particular is absolutely grand and epic in scale and a masterful feat in stop motion animation. It still surprises me that Laika was able to pull this off and I can’t imagine how long it must have took to animate and choregraph this whole scene.
Wildwood is one of Laika’s best films and one of the best stop motion animated films of all time (possibly tied with my favorite Laika film Coraline). It has the best animation of any animated film this year and the best animation of any stop motion film. It is also up there with Gravity Falls as one of the best pieces of media set in my home state of Oregon. An absolute shoe in to win Best Animated Feature at nest year’s Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Annie Awards guaranteed.
Verdict:
+Alexandra
+Mature tone
+The animation
+The worldbuilding
Score: A+
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