The Boxtrolls Review

It's so frustrating when there is a movie I really want to see in theaters and then miss the opportunity. I really had wanted to see The Boxtrolls (2014) in theaters, but somehow missed it. I'm a big fan of stop motion animation, and even though it seems to be a dying art in the face of high tech digital animation, once in awhile another feature film hits theaters. I'm glad there are studios and talented stop motion animators keeping the medium alive. The Boxtrolls ended up being a charming film featuring some stellar animation.

The Boxtrolls are a community of quirky, mischievous creatures who have lovingly raised an orphaned human boy, whom they named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), in the amazing cavernous home they've built beneath the streets of a city called Cheesebridge. The story is about a young orphaned boy raised by underground cave-dwelling trash collectors who tries to save his friends from an evil exterminator, the town's villain, Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley). When Snatcher comes up with a plot to get rid of the Boxtrolls. Eggs decides to venture above ground and "into the light," where he meets and teams up with fabulously feisty Winnifred (Elle Fanning), the mayor's daughter. Together, they devise a daring plan to save The Boxtrolls family.

The animation in The Boxtrolls is fantastic! This was animated by Laika Studios, who also did Coraline, ParaNorman, and were contracted to do Corpse Bride. There is such beautiful subtlety in the characters' movements, from the subtle little facial expressions and eye movements to the insanely complex gestures and action scenes. Everything moves with marvelous fluidity and nonchalance. Even the bounciness of Winnifred's curly hair and swaying of Snatcher's greasy, ropey hair looks remarkably believable and convincing. The characters still have fascinating structure to them. Unlike most characters designed by Tim Burton, not all of the ones in The Boxtrolls are spindly; some are large and bulky, others are small and compact, and there are a few skinny, spindly ones, too. Some of the characters even change size and dimensions. Often when this happens, we're shown a projection of their shadow on a wall as they transform, but here we actually see the transformation in exquisite detail. Even these shots are done with amazing detail as the character struggles to maintain balance while we watch their weight shift significantly. I simply cannot speak highly enough of the animation here.

A complaint I had about the stop motion animation in ParaNorman was the frequent inclusion of some CGI to garnish a particular shot that simply couldn't be done with stop motion animation alone. While these shots and scenes often looked good, it kind of weakens the magic of stop motion animation when there's too much CGI. There was some CGI added here and there in The Boxtrolls, but it wasn't taking center stage. It took the form of clouds of smoke or dust to accent a shot, not take up the whole background as was done in ParaNorman. Minimal use of CGI was beneficial in the end. Most of its implementation was subtle and wouldn't have looked as good without it.

The story here is cute. We have a boy raised by a family of quirky lovable little creatures who are misunderstood, and worlds collide when the boy tries to interact with the people where he's from. Then we've got a token villain who is selfish and wants to exterminate the cute lovable creatures, and our hero has to straddle the line between both worlds to bring peace to both. The Boxtrolls doesn't really do much in the way of originality as far as story goes, it's a classic Hero's Journey story structure that's been used since ancient Greek myth. It's still a fun little story that anyone of any age could get behind, though, and the characters are remarkably charming, if a bit on the simple side.

The theme here seems to be trying to say something meaningful but it gets murky. It seems to be trying to say something about our nature, or how we were born. We're constantly told that characters behave in such a way that is simply in their nature, and they can't really change their circumstances. For example, it is in the nature of the Boxtrolls, themselves, to be passive and hide when there is danger. Eggs doesn't want them to change, but he tries to get them to run for their own safety but can't seem to get them to do it. When the Boxtrolls actually do flee on occasion, there is much applause for changing their nature. But Snatcher is motivated by climbing the social ladder and is actively trying to change his "nature" or circumstance but can't seem to do it. What's the message we're supposed to get from this? There's not even something to suggest that we have the circumstances we're given and we just have to do the best with what we can sort of manage. The murky theme is amusingly explored by Snatcher's henchmen who are frequently discussing the duality of good and evil and pondering whether they are inherently good or evil, and if they even have a choice in the matter. These same henchmen get a funny mid-credits scene where they speculate about giant omnipotent beings controlling everything they do while we actually see the stop motion animators manipulating the puppets for these characters. I'm really not clear what message I was supposed to get from The Boxtrolls, but I can overlook that since the rest of the movie was pretty good.

The Boxtrolls isn't Lakia's best film, but it's still very much enjoyable, as it is packed with enough offbeat wit and visual splendor to offer a healthy dose of all-ages entertainment. Visually, the film is a feast, stuffed with little jokes and surprises and the kind of black humor that Alfred Hitchcock heartily enjoyed, as well as having some painful, groaner puns. The animation is incredible, but the theme is obtuse and confusing. The Boxtrolls moves forward with revolutionary techniques in filmmaking, but mostly stands still as far as theme and story structure goes. It looks great, but no amount of visual trickery or animation genius can make a mediocre story any better than what it is. That said, I still liked The Boxtrolls a great deal, and I think it's worth seeing even if it is on the simple side. I just can't get over how great everything looked! The Boxtrolls is currently streaming on Netflix as of this writing and it's not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. Though there are parts that might be a bit too scary for younger viewers.

Maleficent Review

When Disney released a picture of Angelina Jolie in costume to promote the upcoming Maleficent (2014) movie, everyone went bonkers over it! It was a simple close-up that showcased the Disney villain's iconic headgear and face. I admit even I was instantly psyched to see it. But a movie starring a villain sounded like a gutsy move for Disney. It had potential to screw up a classic character, or to be dynamic and interesting. Incidentally, it did neither.

A beautiful, pure-hearted, winged young woman, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), had an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom until one day an invading army threaten the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal - an act that begins to turn her pure heart into stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces a battle with the invading king's successor, King Stefan (Sharlto Copley), and as a result places a curse upon the newborn infant Aurora. Raised by three bumbling pixies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, & Juno Temple), Aurora (Elle Fanning) is caught in the middle of a seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic action that will change both worlds forever - and perhaps to Maleficent's true happiness as well.

I constantly hear praise for Maleficent as being a feminist take on the classic fairy tale. I don't think that's the case. Feminism, as I understand it, is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of equality. That's a great thing to advocate! But the three main male characters are really awful for different reasons. King Stefan is a power hungry monster who will walk all over anyone to reach his goals; Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites) is the most vapid and pointless character in the movie, almost as if he inconveniently wandered on set while the cameras were rolling for two very short scenes; and while Maleficent's shape-shifting crow, Diaval (Sam Riley), has enough spine to voice an opinion once in a while, he's basically a subservient toady. Demonizing or controlling men is not what feminism is about. However, most of the women characters in Maleficent are at least as simple and ridiculous as the men are. Ultimately, I don't think feminism plays a particularly significant role for or against.

Maleficent has a fantastic and even romantic fairy tale vibe. It's some high end fantasy and often feels like a classic fairy tale that I was unfamiliar with. The classic Disney fairy tales usually started out with the camera focusing on a book with a brief narration to introduce the story. In Maleficent, there is a narrator that sounds like a sweet grandmotherly lady reading to us a bedtime story. I liked the narrator at first, but it quickly became evident that the narrator was being overused. The narration delivered a lot of exposition telling us things that the movie should be showing us rather than telling us, and it robbed the characters of development. We're told what Maleficent was doing and shown Jolie in dramatic poses instead of showing her do these things. It weakened the story and the characters by not letting us see the changes these characters are going through.

The major draw for Maleficent was to see Angelina Jolie play Maleficent. She looked amazing! The costume was perfection itself. Her makeup and prosthetics really helped sell this Disney icon. Those cheekbones could cut a person if they weren't careful. Jolie looked, sounded, and acted the part so beautifully, it was almost chilling. As Maleficent tries on this "evil" role as she seeks revenge, she genuinely looks scary! Apparently, Jolie in full costume was so intimidating that they couldn't get young child actors to go near her. The only one unafraid was Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, Angelina's six-year-old daughter, who was used to play young Aurora so that the two characters could be in close proximity. Here's a clip to help illustrate how amazing Jolie is in this role:

The visuals were plentiful and detailed, but they relied heavily on CGI and 3D effects. I'm certain most of the scenes were done in front of a green screen. It lacked heart and made everything feel even more artificial than a fantasy movie already seems. The pixies who resembled the Three Stooges looked awful and were very irritating. I'm sure the garish colors and flashy CGI was used to draw in audiences, but it failed to impress me.

Overall, Maleficent was okay. With only her voice and sense of bearing, Jolie effortlessly makes the notoriously wicked fairy seem real. No one else involved in Maleficent seems to have that magic. It was weird to see this powerful classic Disney villain depicted as a heroine who lapses into villainy. Reconstructing one of the most evil animated characters of all time this way didn't necessarily ruin the iconic Disney character, but it certainly didn't do her any favors. I want to say the story would have been better had it not used preexisting characters and changed their story, but then there would be no real attraction to see this movie. I still think Maleficent is worth seeing, just to see Jolie play this role so incredibly well. This is a good movie to watch as a family, and with a PG rating it's not too scary for young kids. I daresay it's more tame than the original 1959 Sleeping Beauty. It's not good enough for the cost of a theater ticket; it's a renter.

After seeing Maleficent, are you anxious to see the upcoming live-action Cinderella remake? It's set to release in 2015. Comment below and tell me why or why not!

Super 8 Movie Review

When the 2011 movie Super 8 hit theaters, I saw lots of jokes online about how Super 8 was essentially E.T. (1982) with lens flares. Now that I’ve seen this movie that J.J. Abrams wrote and directed,  I can’t really think of a good argument against the critical jab at this movie. But to its credit, it has a great feeling of nostalgia.

In the summer of 1979, a group of 13-year-old boys set out to make a zombie movie on their Super 8 mm film camera. Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is still grieving the recent loss of his mother, but still agrees to help his friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) shoot a movie. They enlist the help of Alice (Elle Fanning), an older girl who drives them to shooting locations and acts as their film’s leading lady. While shooting a scene at a train station at night, they witness a horrible train crash caused by a truck driving towards the train on the track. Narrowly escaping with their lives, the kids return home agreeing to never speak of the event. The next morning the Air Force is prowling around their little town and cleaning up the train wreckage. Over the next couple of days, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin taking place all over town. Pet dogs are found many miles away from town, people disappear, microwaves and car engines go missing, gas stations are wrecked, etc. The local Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb (Kyle Chandler), Joe’s distant and depressive father, tries to uncover the truth to no avail. Once Charles’s film is finally developed they find that their footage caught something on camera that doesn’t appear to be from Earth.

J.J. Abrams is known for the TV series Lost and the movies Mission: Impossible III (2006) and Star Trek (2009). Super 8 is his first original film; not a sequel or reboot of a previously established film franchise. It seems as though Abrams hasn’t quite developed his own style yet and sought too much advice from the film’s producer Stephen Spielberg. A lot of Super 8 feels like a nostalgic early Spielberg movie in terms of character, setting, and even some camera work. Don’t misunderstand; I love Spielberg and his movies. It just seems like Abrams felt too insecure about his own story and directing, that the big name producer’s input over-insinuated itself in the movie.

Super 8 has an oft over-used story element where the kids have found something important and are piecing the puzzle together and the parents refuse to listen to them. When this is done poorly, it makes the characters and story unrealistic, glorifying children as something more than their stage of development would merit and making experienced adults appear abnormally stupid and narrow-minded. Super 8 did it the right way. The kids are obviously in over their heads, they are scared (one kid even throws up regularly when frightened), they don’t have the ability to oppose the powers that be, they lack experience to know how to handle these situations, and they try to tell the adults who would be better suited for the task. The kids act like kids in every realistic way. I have to praise Abrams for that.  And the adults aren’t listening to the kids because they don’t take the kids seriously. They are in the middle of a crisis, everyone is panicking and the adults don’t want to stop and hear about what the kids found on their camera.

While Super 8 has some great CGI and a great train derailment scene, the movie focuses more on the human drama between the characters. I like a good character driven story, but the characters aren’t that deep or complex. Some of the characters are given one or two shticks that are reiterated every time they are on screen. This is occasionally funny, such as the borderline pyromaniac kid who is supposed to be in charge of their film’s special effects and explosions. The kid actors do a decent job with their roles, but they aren’t going to win Oscars for it. Because the characters are simple and some even cliché, the character drama isn’t always captivating. That, compounded by the fact that the good action scenes are few and far between, only makes the movie drag out longer than is necessary.

All in all, Super 8 was an okay movie. It seems to be made for adults to remind them of movies they loved as kids. This isn’t something I’d show to young audiences; there’s a lot of intense frightening imagery, profanity (mostly from the kids), violence, and drug use to truly be a family film. People die in this movie, and the kids are constantly in peril. If you liked E.T., The Goonies (1985), Star Trek, or Mission: Impossible III you’ll probably enjoy Super 8. I did like it, but not enough to want to own a copy of. It’s a good renter.

What did you think of Super 8? Did you like it? Was it more than just “E.T. with lens flare?” Comment below and tell me why!