This must be the first time I've taken Netflix's up-front suggestion for movie streaming. Now I've finally seen all the most recent Best Animated Feature nominees, ending with the one least widely welcome on the list. Personally, I can't blame the Academy for passing over the commercialism of The Lego Movie, but I'll have to check out The Book of Life for another possible replacement.
The Boxtrolls wastes no time (which there's never much of in stop-action) establishing a conflict: In a British town circa 1900, few humans have any love for the trolls who live underground, wear old cardboard boxes, and steal various objects off the street at night -- mostly inexpensive or even trashed. When loutish Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley gone Cockney) reports that the Boxtrolls have abducted a baby, supposedly for food, he persuades the mayor to authorize him and his three assistants to annihilate the menace by any means necessary. Ten years later, the former baby, dubbed "Eggs" due to his box, makes contact with a curfew-defying girl around the same age -- the mayor's daughter. Together they strive to dispel the false rumors about Boxtrolls, but Snatcher has his lordly ambitions as well as his influence....
To me, LAIKA Films and perhaps its distributor, Focus Features, still seem to be sorting out how to appeal to family audiences. Coraline is pretty great, but in the absence of Neil Gaiman writing, well, see my opinion of ParaNorman. The morals, while valid, are invariably heavy-handed -- more so than Disney's on average. Nobody's all that smart, and I get tired of incredible imbeciles pretty quickly. (In this case, the mayor and his cronies give nothing precedence over cheese. Mocking Wallace and Gromit, are we?)
I might give LAIKA credit for moving away from the Gothic for a change. While the setting and medium reminded me of Corpse Bride, there are no undead, and the body count is smaller than you'd think. Unfortunately, it still rivals Corpse Bride in grossness. Not with fallback bodily function humor, but with something rarer. Let me put it this way: As immune as I am to appetite suppression, I was glad not to have any cheese that evening.
Another movie to come to mind was Despicable Me, because the Boxtrolls are a lot like Minions. They're thieving but mostly harmless. They're either all male or severely lacking in sexual dimorphism. They show little to no variety in personality. They have their own language, with a smattering of English words thrown in. (We never do find out why Eggs speaks plain English even to them; he claims "a speech impediment," but get real.) If only they could match the Minions in cuteness.
In spite of the above flaws, I found myself mostly enjoying the movie a little better than PN, CB, or DM. Why? Inventiveness, I suppose. The Boxtrolls do some unusual things with the items they collect, such as breaking light bulbs with a frying pan for music. The real visual delight comes in their mechanical cleverness, lending a semi-steampunk atmosphere. That and their habit of using boxes not just as IDs but like turtle shells.
SLIGHT SPOILER PARAGRAPH
The ending is doubly ironic. First, after failing to persuade the right people that Boxtrolls wouldn't hurt a fly (except to eat it), Eggs persuades the Boxtrolls to go against their non-confrontational nature and become dangerous after all. It does not harm their image among the populace. Second, after the bulk of the struggle, the main villain gets all he wanted -- and it becomes his undoing. They would've had a lot less trouble if they'd given it to him in the first place! Yeah, such a resolution works for Indiana Jones, but at least Jones always has an exciting time of it. The "climax" herein is extraordinarily quiet. In retrospect, I don't think it challenged the heroes enough.
Presently, TB has a 6.8 on IMDb. That's about right for it.
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