[Spoilers Ahead]
Studio Laika films are at their best when they're at their darkest. Coraline (2009) involved a young girl being tortured and almost killed by other-dimensional monsters. The entire storyline of ParaNorman (2012) was set in motion by the lynching of a little girl. Now comes their third full-length feature: Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi's The Boxtrolls. On the one hand, the stop-motion animation has never been better. Each frame is filled with complex motion crammed into every layer—foreground, midground, background. There is a real emphasis on physical humor that does justice to the great silent comedians. And yet, The Boxtrolls isn't as mean as it could be. And ultimately I think it suffers for it. One of the major plot points involves the capture and apparent slaughter over a period of years of the eponymous Boxtrolls. Yet we eventually learn that they are all fine—in addition to the supposedly murdered father of the protagonist. This all feels like a cheap cop-out invented by writers who wrote themselves into a third-act corner. But on the other hand the film does involve a villain who, refreshingly, is willing and capable of straight-up murdering little children. And he does die by literally exploding. But, on a side note, can anybody explain to me why he was a drag singer? Was there a point to that subplot? Because if there was, I think I missed it...
7/10
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