The Boxtrolls visually captivates viewers with its quick pace, but loses them through its lack of progressive storytelling. The Boxtrolls is the newest movie from Laika, the studio that brought similarly morbid and charming films such as Coraline and ParaNorman. Although the recent addition to the studio’s repertoire doesn’t quite reach the levels of greatness as the former two, it’s still a joy to watch on screen.
Although other animation studios these days opt to utilize computer programs more often than not to mold their characters, Laika stands out in its persistent and remarkably flawless development of stop-motion animation. A mid-credit cut scene demonstrates tongue-in-cheek how the images are painstakingly put together, and anyone would be hard-pressed to say all that work isn’t worth it.
The Boxtrolls stuns viewers in a way that cannot be conveyed through any other means—the characters inhabit their environments with a sense of entitlement and life that can only be attained through their actual occupation of space.
Isaac Hempstead-Wright (otherwise known as one of the still-living characters on Game of Thrones) voices the protagonist, Eggs, a boy who thinks he’s a boxtroll. Even still, Eggs maintains more character in his careful design than through his voice actor. Aimless until his boxtroll parents are endangered, Eggs unfortunately lacks the prominence of other Laika protagonists.
However, the supporting cast more than makes up for Eggs’ blandness, what with Winnie “token girl” Portley-Rind (Elle Fanning), who delights in the macabre, and Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), the obsequious antagonist and most complex character of the lot. Kingsley’s voice acting stands out from the rest, as he takes a particular relish in doling out threats to those who he perceives are beneath him.
Additionally, the boxtrolls cannot be ignored. As genderless, grumbling beings that adopt Eggs as one of their own, they serve as amiable familial substitutes who happen to have a knack for tinkering with objects that aren’t nailed down.
The Boxtrolls seeks to subvert monster mythology by making the monsters under the bed extremely sympathetic characters. The boxtrolls themselves often code as “Other” within the confines of the world, surviving beneath the city while being wrongly shunned by the society literally and figuratively above them. Citizens marginalize the boxtrolls, punishing them for having the audacity to take merely the scraps of the privileged culture that oppresses them.
The Exterminators, led by Snatcher, hunt the boxtrolls, apparently seeking to rid the town of its infestation of “dangerous” pests. Snatcher has an ulterior motive: he hopes to escape his own low position in society by taking advantage of the boxtrolls.
The story eventually veers away from this angle in a manner that doesn’t sit right, because the resolution the film seemed to be working towards doesn’t quite come. Rather than upsetting the systemic relegation of not only the boxtrolls but also people such as Snatcher who aspire to change their societal roles, the people who indulge in rare privileges are allowed to retain their rosy positions.
The almost complete lack of women in The Boxtrolls may also distract the audience. The only female character with a substantial speaking role is Winnie, and although she is fantastic, the overall dominance of male characters poses some problems.
Another theme of the movie is family, and although there are multiple lines governing the importance of fatherhood, mothers are not mentioned at all. An additional fault of the film lies in the casual transphobia that presents itself in sporadic doses throughout the film.
Ordinarily in a movie, this would not stand out. However, because Laika has in the past upheld such a progressive and socially-aware persona, it is off-putting that the studio has taken such a step back.
Faults aside, The Boxtrolls is worth watching to at least appreciate the incredible animation. It is tightly plotted, never boring and has multiple scenes in which Moss from The IT Crowd contemplates implications of his own supporting character’s storyline.
