“I love stop motion animation! This is the same team that did Coraline and Paranorman, pretty much the only major players left for the technique. Or at least the only ones producing full length feature films. While computer animation is great and all, I do get nostalgic for the more old school techniques sometimes.
Although even this older technology is evolving. Now with 3D printing and other advances, they’re able to make the animation more fluid, and give their puppets more expression. It almost looks computer animated, and thus loses some of its clunky charm. It was still very cute. I did fall in love with those adorable little creatures (that aren’t too unlike Minions), and they get super bonus awesome points for being engineers.
As cute as the boxtrolls are, that’s not enough to carry a movie. Sadly, it seems like so much focus was on creating these little dudes that plot was kind of an afterthought. And therefore it was dull. Not a lot was happening, and things that did happen were entirely expected. Some humor, especially from the characters voiced by Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, and Tracey Morgan, but even then it wasn’t that strong. An important part of a good kiddie film is humor that includes the “”bigger”” kids. Not nearly enough effort there.
I’d be more than happy to see these cute little critters in future shorts, but they’re gonna need a lil more if they wanna carry a full feature.
The Boxtrolls – \m/ \m/ \n”