It is a fantasy adventure in Laika’s distinctively crafted stop-motion animation, written by Chris Butler from the bestseller of the same title by Carson Ellis and Colin Meloy, the latter being a band member of The Decemberists, one of whose tour posters we duly glimpse in this film. The director is Laika’s lead animator Travis Knight. It’s a forthright, exuberant, good-natured and old-fashioned children’s tale which CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien might have recognised, a story about the mysterious glory of going on a quest and the terrible fear and wish-fulfilment euphoria of being called upon to confront secret forces that the grownups know nothing about.
The trailer is brilliant and I plan to see it at the Vue after work on Friday. I can't go to the Everyman because the only showing is 7pm, and that's too late.
The setting is modern-day Portland, Oregon, a groovy city whose hipster-ish stores (there’s a coffee shop actually called Dripster) and Woke 1.0 signage are affectionately mocked.
‘Affectionate’ mocking is ok, then?
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.
*sigh* They have to get in a dig, don’t they? ‘No, the films I like are hand-made artisan ones, not gorrible artificial CGI ones, like you peasants’
