Review: Wildwood is an epic fantasy triumph that was worth the long wait

I don't know that I've ever been as excited for a movie as I was for LAIKA's latest, Wildwood, which hits theaters next week. It comes more than seven years after the studio's last film, the charming throwback adventure Missing Link, so there's been lots of time for anticipation to grow. And grow, it did. I often talk about how stop-motion is my favorite kind of animation. It's so meticulous, so grueling, so human. One of the innumerable joys of watching a LAIKA movie is the bit during the credits where they show a time-lapse BTS, and you see just how time-consuming and precise the animation process is. Watching the battle against the giant skeleton in Kubo and the Two Strings or the elephant ride in Missing Link come to life before your eyes, it makes me want to weep. Thank goodness there are people out there willing to put in the time and effort to create animation like this. How lucky are we to get to bear witness to it.

And I'm so happy (and frankly unsurprised) to say that Wildwood was worth the long, long wait.

Much of the news surrounding the film in the lead-up to its theatrical release has centered on the scale of the project. It's the longest stop-motion movie ever made, clocking in at over two hours long. The epic battle scene clocks in at over ten minutes long and contains thousands of characters -- it is jaw-dropping to behold. I was in a state of awe throughout the film. It's hard to believe what you're seeing, it's so immense. Wildwood is a lot of movie. 

But just as impressive, maybe more impressive, is how intimate the film is, how much all the small details impact you as a viewer, as a voyager on this incredible adventure. This is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. The attention to detail is astonishing, the animation so fluid and seamless and expressive. There are times where I kind of forgot I was watching stop-motion animation, the characters move so smoothly, every joint and articulation so finely cared-for and executed. In a time when Hollywood is frothing at the mouth waiting to dive headfirst into AI slop, what a miracle to behold a movie that is so deeply manmade, the outcome of countless hours, months, years of work.

Of course, all the technical and artistic impressiveness can only take a movie so far, but Wildwood wields its wizardry in service of a fantastic story. Based on Colin Meloy's middle-grade fantasy novel of the same name, the film follows Prue McKeel, a girl who somewhat bristles at the weirdness of the world around her. She's trying to grow up, to be independent, to feel at home in the world, but her city of Portland is full of weirdos, like her nerdy and attentive classmate Curtis.

Charged with taking care of her baby brother Mac for an afternoon, Prue defies her parent's orders and takes him out on the town, hauling him in a wagon behind her bike. You can't keep the kid inside all the time, right? While playing on a school playground, a massive murder of crows abducts Mac and flies him into the Impassible Wilderness, a place that's the setting for Mr. McKeel's stories, which he uses as a warning to his kids to be safe. Generally, it also lives up to its name: it's a vast forest that normal people can't enter. Yet Prue manages to, with Curtis accompanying her. So the two young heroes (or heroes-to-be, rather) enter a massive magical world full of colorful characters, warring factions, and strange magic. Magic that Prue isn't keen to believe in at all.

The world-building in Wildwood is one of my favorite parts of the movie. There is a massive cast of characters, different groups with different goals. The lore runs deep, and the film does a great job at dispensing it when and where we need it, including a couple illuminating flashback sequences. Some of the key players include the Dowager Governess, a woman who commands an army of bipedal coyotes and who is mourning the loss of her son; the General, a massive eagle from the Avian Principality who is wary of the appearance of an outside in her world; and Brendan, the Bandit King whose people once held dominion over the woods, and who want to regain that authority. This is only scratching the surface: it's such a joy to meet all the characters, see how they interact with each other, and finally see them all come together in a fateful final battle that is among the most impressive sequences ever put to screen.

Watching Prue try to navigate this strange new world, and figure out who she can trust and what she should do next, plays as an elegant and exciting metaphor for the pains of growing up. Being a young person is hard for so many reasons, and it's even harder today than it ever was, I think. The world is full of loud voices shouting at each other, fingers pointing, opinions clashing, wars happening. And in the midst of it all, the chaos and confusion, we're all charged with being the authors of our own stories, figuring out how we fit into the bigger picture, trying to make out what that bigger picture even is. It's thorny, impossible, but we have to do the work of living. Prue wants to just find her way in her normal, day-to-day life, and suddenly she's cast as a main player in a fairy tale, one she has no interest in being a part of. But we don't always have the power to choose which stories we appear in, for better or for worse.

With so many characters, so many motivations, factions, settings, details to impart, Wildwood could easily fall apart or stumble in its exposition, or feel like it's lumbering, too much. But the film flies by, building momentum scene to scene and sequence to sequence, throwing in smart twists and interesting wrinkles. I was always excited to be watching what I was watching, happy to jump to any character, to see what was coming next. And I was genuinely surprised in a few instances. This is a dark and tragic story, a violent one, too. I was shocked at some of the more violent moments. (Were this live-action, it would've been flirting with an R-rating, methinks.)

As much of a visual feast as Wildwood is, it's also a smorgasbord for the ears. Dario Marianelli, who has scored a couple of LAIKA's previous films, delivers one of the best scores of the year, with appropriately sweeping and swooping melodies and arrangements that put you right in the thick of the action and emotion. This soundtrack will be getting a lot of play in this house. The Decemberists' end credits song "The Better Part of Bravery" is wonderful, a pitch-perfect note to end the film on. And fun fact: the Colin Meloy who wrote the Wildwood book is also the band's frontman. Fancy that!

The voice cast is also worthy of heaps of praise. LAIKA has always excelled at getting lovely, layered performances out of big celebrities and less-established actors alike. Here, with so many characters, they've also assembled a huge and starry cast, all of whom do great work. You have animated regulars like Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay alongside huge names like Mahershala Ali, Carey Mulligan, and Angela Bassett. And Peyton Elizabeth Lee, who comes from a Disney Channel background (I know her from her starring role in Prom Pact, which is a fun one), does tremendous work as Prue. Her performance is full of emotion, carefully calibrated, rich and real. She nails the role, and is the perfect anchor for the cast to work alongside.

I don't know how to wrap this review up. It feels wrong, like it's not enough, to just sign off, summarize what I've already written, do an extra little screed against AI. This movie has loomed so large in my imagination for years. I can't believe it's finally here, that it's finally (almost) out, that it's a movie that belongs to me now. To all of us who love animation and celebrate the one-of-a-kind artistry that LAIKA pulls off up in Oregon. 

Maybe I'll just say that once upon a time, I got to watch a movie that transported me to another world, and it was utterly magical to be inside it for a couple of hours, and as the credits rolled and I made my way home, it felt like I would live happily ever after.