The Boxtrolls (2014)
Certified: U
Duration: 96 minutes
Directed by: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi
Starring: Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, Simon Pegg, Dee Bradley Baker, Steve Blum
KRS Releasing Ltd

The Boxtrolls is a feature adaptation of the Alan Snow book series Here Be Monsters! by the company Laika, the same company that brought the exciting Coraline and the interesting ParaNorman. The film has a quasi-Steampunk setting.

The boxtrolls live in a hidden city named Cheesebridge. They are mostly night critters living in/form part of boxes and have the tendency to steal anything that is left out at night. One night they even take a baby and bring him up as a boxtroll.

In a bid to eradicate the boxtrolls and earn a seat among the leaders and the aristocrats, Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kinglsey) spreads the news that the boxtrolls are malicious creatures and that they kidnapped the ‘Trubshaw Baby’. These leaders wile away the time eating a lot of cheese and are led by Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris).

The film’s setting is very well developed and very imaginative

Isaac Hempstead Wight voices the boy who grows up among the boxtrolls thinking he is a boxtroll, sort of like Tarzan among the apes. With the carton he lives in titled ‘eggs’, he starts getting called Eggs. At one point a girl called Winnifred Portley-Rind (Elle Fanning) gets to know him and then ventures into the underground habitat of the boxtrolls. There she will see the difference between what she was told about the boxtrolls and who they really are.

One of the things that delineate a Laika feature is the vivid imagination and flights of fancy that are infused into their movies.

It uses a mix of animation and stop-motion-style animation that raises the level of the film; its setting is very well developed and very imaginative. The characters are charming and silly.

Between the upper world and the boxtroll world there is a parallel universe that is gothic and a cross between Tim Burton and Charles Dickens, making it the perfect experience.

Then there is the wacky humour and the strange and wonderful-looking boxtrolls who are not annoying at all and are rather cute in a weird way. Their mix of gargoyle and turtle/dog kind of elements give them their distinctive look.

The character of Snatcher as a villain is hilarious and this lets both the animators and Kingsley run wild with their imagination.

At the same time, the film also sends a message about family, marginalisation and the need to not discriminate against individuals because they are different.

The issue of state power and the abuse that can come with this is also very present.

The mix of grotesque gothic and cuddly silliness works well to convey the film’s message without overstating its case.