Along with the higher-profile categories, I'm also always interested in seeing what makes the Best Animated Film shortlist. I was utterly appalled to see that the Lego Movie was omitted this year; I'm sure Big Hero 6 is perfectly adequate, but it does seem as though Disney Pixar get automatic free passes and, frequently, automatic free wins. Sure, there's nods to alternative styles of animation amidst the nominations - heck, I'm writing about one of them today as soon as I'm done blowing off steam - but my gut instinct is that the Academy has a problem with movies with an anti-corporate message, even if they're sponsored by one of the world's largest toy companies.
...Anyway, The Boxtrolls has a fantastic pedigree, coming as it does from Laika studios. These are the people behind critically-acclaimed kiddie horror Coraline, one of the most beautifully creepy pieces of entertainment in decades, and in my book anything with their involvement is worth a look. Like Aardman, they deal in stop-motion animation, but there the resemblance stops - their stock-in-trade is the macabre, with doll-like models and painterly backdrops, all seamlessly blended together by the magic of digital enhancement.
Their subject matter this time is Alan Snow's children's book Here be Monsters, with the monsters being the film's titular Boxtrolls. The setting is the quasi-Dickensian city of Cheesebridge, where sharp class divisions exist between the rich, who wear white hats and eat cheese, and the poor, who are condemned to wear red hats - what they eat is unspecified, but presumably non-dairy-based. The Boxtrolls themselves, meanwhile, are small blue creatures who wear cardboard boxes as portable hiding places, living underground and repurposing the things that the everyday folks leave behind.
Generally seen as vermin, the Boxtrolls' life takes a turn for the worse when would-be social climber Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley) warns the city leader Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris) that they have not only murdered the inventor Herbert Trubshaw but kidnapped and devoured his infant son. Portley-Rind is relatively unconcerned, but when Snatcher points out that they might also harbour designs on his precious cheese collection, he is spurred to action, promising Snatcher his white hat if he can eliminate every single Boxtroll from Cheesebridge.
Ten years on, meanwhile, and Portley-Rind's daughter Winifred (voice: Elle Fanning), a strong-willed young girl of a distinctly Gothic turn of mind, bitterly resents her father neglecting her in favour of his all-consuming cheese obsession. One particularly dismissive comment leads to her impulsively hurling his hat from a high window, a gesture she immediately regrets. When she descends to the city streets to fetch it, she makes the first of a series of discoveries that ensure that life in Cheesebridge will never be the same again...
The good
It's been a long time since I've seen a childrens' film with such a strong message - Boxtrolls is all about social division, and it practically counts as incitement. While the real villain of the piece is always Snatcher, it eventually becomes apparent that his chief flaw is his relentless obsession with class and social climbing. This leads him to consume such cheese as he can obtain despite it being so toxic to him that it causes his face to swell to grotesque proportions, and while his loathsomeness is never in doubt, he remains a victim of a broader societal malaise. He's one of the most complex villains in recent cinematic memory, with his repellent physical design complemented beautifully by Kingsley's vocal stylings.Voicework is good all round, really, with the possible exception of Elle Fanning's Winnie of the wavery accent - Isaac Hempstead Wright is lovely as Eggs, the boy raised by Boxtrolls, and Jared Harris is suitably irritating as Lord Portley-Rind. My personal favourites, however, were Snatcher's trio of henchmen Mr. Trout, Mr. Pickles and Mr. Gristle, played by Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade and 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan respectively. Pickles in particular is something of a philosopher, leading to my new favourite-ever piece of post-credits tomfoolery.
The film is every bit as visually spectacular as we've come to expect from Laika - faces look like watercolour paintings, and backgrounds are so detailed that I suspect only a large-screen viewing could do them justice. The effects work is seamless, and I can't even begin to imagine the amount of effort involved.
Finally, extra PC-points for the fact that Eggs' babyhood carers are clearly both male; it's a lovely positive message delivered in a really low-key way so as not to distract from the main topic at hand.
The bad
A lot of critics seem to have really disliked this one; they weren't keen on the grubbiness or ugliness of it. I'd refute this as being a function of the setting - it deals in an ugly setting, and some very ugly truths indeed.I saw a lot of accusations of childishness, too, and gross-out humour. These are probably true, but on the other hand, it's clearly a kids' film, and probably one aimed at a more mainstream audience than Coraline (I can't comment yet on Laika's other effort, ParaNorman as I haven't seen it, although I hope to remedy this soon) - certainly, I didn't ever find myself feeling particularly revolted.
Harder to dismiss, however, are claims that the storytelling is messy and overly busy - there's a lot going on in the course of the film's 96-minute runtime and things occasionally feel rushed. It's exacerbated by the obligatory overly-long action climax, which almost feels episodic in and of itself.
My main criticism, though, is the lack of female roles, which are limited to Winnie, plus her mother, who has maybe three lines in the entire movie. I've heard that a major female character was cut in the transition from book to film and replaced with a Simon Pegg cameo, which sounds like the opening line to a joke I can't be bothered to make. It's a shame, as Winnie herself is fairly compelling, and I can see this one being of equal appeal to both genders.
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