Review Roundup: Travis Knight’s Wildwood

Wildwood would be one of the best movies of the year even if the story was mediocre, but it’s an emotionally-charged narrative with intriguing, multilayered protagonists and villains, and a vast ensemble of supporting characters who have unique and wonderful qualities. It’s a story, in the end, about everything we would endure for the people we love, which makes it genuinely beautiful that Travis Knight and Laika did all this for their audience.

The stop-motion animation style has, as with Coraline, a robust and pleasing directness, and results in, for me, a more organic character and physical immediacy than Pixar’s ubiquitous digital look, to which it makes a welcome change. I wasn’t sure that the narrative delivered a satisfyingly clear motive for the governess’s reprehensible plan, and in fact the story itself did not have the scary punch of Coraline, except in the uncanny opening sequence. Then again, it’s not that kind of story.

How can one possibly make it novel in a landscape crowded with high-concept, high-speed animated movies? LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio behind such acclaimed films as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, has wisely decided that, instead of chasing the tide, it will create its own waves. And its latest film from Kubo director Travis Knight, the breathtaking new fantasy epic Wildwood, is a triumphant tidal wave for the medium.

Wildwood is an astonishment, a gift, an instant classic with a delirious sense of wonder and enough heft to become the defining film of a child’s lifetime. It will be someone’s The Secret of NIMH or Watership Down. Someone’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It may be better than all of those.

This is LAIKA, one of the most lauded studios working in animation today, so if you’re expecting Wildwood to be visually magnificent, you won’t be disappointed (and Dario Marianelli’s soaring score seals the emotional deal).

The visuals of Wildwood simply cannot be understated. The actual artistry on display, plus the scale that the movie is aiming for, make for a combination that really hasn’t been seen in a stop-motion movie before. Everything from the character designs, to the art direction, to the cinematography is just masterfully done, and it absolutely deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

The feats of stop-motion animation Wildwood pulls off are breathtaking, mystifying; it is, without a doubt, a new standard-bearer for the art form. It’s such a joy to watch that even minor quibbles about its overstuffed plot and abundance of themes — not all of which get enough attention — fall into the background because you simply don’t want to leave its world.

The sixth feature from independent animation studio Laika is a stunner, a lovingly tactile and thumbprinted feat of stop-motion artistry on a scale rarely seen in the medium, that stands out by a mile in a cartoon marketplace ruled by sheeny, uncanny digital graphics.

[T]here’s nothing drab about this film, it pulses with energy, fuelled by love and righteousness, not just in its story but as a work which deeply respects and adores hand-crafted animation as an artform. In this age of rising AI use, that counts for a lot.

We’re in the midst of a moment in which computer-created slop threatens to overwhelm art made by human imaginations and hands. Wildwood works as a stunning rebuke to the former and a towering example of the possibilities offered by the latter.