Chris Butler
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The story might not have the ingenious imaginative streak of Coraline (2009) or Kubo & the Two Strings (2016) but settles down into an entertaining adventure story featuring tangible awareness and depth.
The latest likable effort from Laika, Missing Link may not match the stop-motion animation studio’s previous endeavors like Coraline and ParaNorman but nevertheless displays enough charm and whimsy to satisfy the small fry.
The stop-motion animation studio’s work has always been impressive — its first film, Coraline, is still stunning a decade later — and yet the studio manages to keep pushing the boundaries.
Written and directed by Chris Butler, hugely entertaining animated adventure Missing Link is the fifth film from Laika, the stop-motion studio behind Coraline and The Boxtrolls.
But it lacks the ethereal wonder of the studio’s best work (including Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings), and its slight, episodic story occasionally lags.
And the episodic, road-trip-style nature of their journey falls in line with plenty of Pixar films as well, a fairly sharp difference from moodier films like Coraline or even the loopy 2014 effort The Boxtrolls.
With a setup not unlike James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, a high society of fellow adventurers are dismayed at Frost’s desires to upturn the very fabric of everyday thinking.
Considering the effort that has to go into every shot, Missing Link—the latest feature from the bespoke animation powerhouse Laika (the studio behind hits such as The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings )—is impressive to the point of feeling daunting.
But it lacks the ethereal wonder of the studio’s best work (including Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings), and its slight, episodic story occasionally lags.
While that premise is undeniably charming, it’s perplexing that a studio that’s had trouble with cultural representation in the past (“Why is the movie’s main cast so white?” asked BuzzFeed about 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings) would pick a colonialist gadfly to serve as Missing Link’s protagonist.
Though its story isn’t as emotionally complex or deep as that of either Kubo and the Two Strings or ParaNorman, Missing Link is a charming, fast-paced adventure that serves as both a showcase for a mix of slapstick and verbal wit, and for the studio’s textured and beautiful animation.
Their third and fourth features, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings continued the trend of Oscar nominations and were successful monetarily.
To the extent that Missing Link is really, stealthily, about generational insecurities, it should appeal to the same adult viewers who loved Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox.
If noting all these titles feels like the popular thing to do (and it’s not like Jungle Cruise isn’t asking for it), perhaps I can stray by noting Laika’s sasquatch buddy comedy-adventure from 2019, the hilarious Missing Link .
But for the younger members of the audience, at whom Missing Link is aimed, this is a far, far better story than say, The Angry Birds Movie, which will be getting a sequel this year.