Move Review: The Boxtrolls

Available today on Blu-ray and DVD is the hit movie The Boxtrolls by Focus Features, the same production company that brought us Coraline and ParaNorman. The Boxtrolls if filmed in the same style of stop motion animation/claymation as Coraline and ParaNorman.

The Boxtrolls stars the voice talents of Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning and Tracy Morgan.

The film takes place in the fictional town of Cheesebridge. The mayor of Cheesebridge is Lord Portley-Rind. He’s a member of the prestigious “White Hat” class. Others, like the town exterminator Archibald Snatcher, doesn’t have a white hat. He desperatly wants one because it will lift his social status.

Snatcher makes a deal with Lord Portley-Rind. He vows to rid the town of the subterranean trolls that live under the city. They wear boxes (which helps to hide them from people) and rumor has it they eat people including a little boy they supposedly kidnapped many years ago. Lord Portley-Rind reluctantly agrees to Snatcher’s deal.

The Boxtrolls live underneath Cheesebridge. They come out at night to go through garbage and pick up little odds and ends that they tinker with back in their home to built things like machine and lights to help make their lives easier.

Living with the Boxtrolls is a young boy named Egg. Egg is the boy that was supposedly kidnapped by the Boxtrolls and eaten by them. The reality is that he lives underground with them and is a part of their family.

Snatcher is determined to capture all the Boxtrolls so he can earn his white hat. Soon most of the Boxtrolls have been captured. Egg and the remaining Boxtrolls set out to find their friends and set them free.

While above ground Egg makes friends with Winnie, Lord Portley-Rind’s precocious daughter. Reluctantly she agrees to help Egg, but in doing so only puts her in harms way too. Snatcher will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if it means destroying the entire town of Cheesebridge.

Will Snatcher ever kill off all the Boxtrolls and finally get his White Hat? Will Egg and Winnie be able to save any of the Boxtrolls? To find out you need to pick up a copy of The Boxtrolls available TODAY where ever movies are sold.

There are plenty of bonus features for this film. I only watched the ones on the DVD (I was unable to watch the Blu-ray version when I was watching the film).

Here are the bonus features.

Bonus Features Exclusive to Blu-ray™ Combo Pack & Blu-ray 3D™ Combo Pack

• Preliminary Animatic Sequences
• Play with Commentary by Directors Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable
• Baby In The Trash
• Eggs In The Underworld
• Man On A Horse
• Trubshaw’s Inventorium
• Cheese Shop
• Tea And Cheese

Bonus Features on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D™ Combo Pack and DVD

• Dare to be Square: Behind the Scenes of the Boxtrolls
• Voicing the Boxtrolls - The tremendously talented cast members of The Boxtrolls discuss what it’s like to voice an animated puppet, what each actor brought to his/her role, whether their personalities were similar to their characters, and more.
• Inside the Box – The directors, producers, and creative supervisor of character fabrication Georgina Hayns share the challenges of crafting characters who are inside a box.
• The Big Cheese: Allergy Snatcher – The directors and producers are joined by Brian McLean, director of Rapid Prototyping, to discuss how the animation studio LAIKA creates the faces for their puppets. The big story here – literally! – is how Snatcher’s face changes shape due to his cheese allergy.
• Deconstructing the Dance – Discover how LAIKA combined traditional stop-motion animation with visual effects in order to create the beautiful ballroom dance sequence – and how costume designer Deborah Cook met the challenge of creating costumes that could flow during a dance scene.
• Think Big: The Mecha Drill – Standing 5 feet tall and weighing over 75 pounds, the Mecha-Drill is the largest stop motion puppet/prop ever created by LAIKA. Follow its creation from design to completion.

Featurettes

• The Nature of Creation
• Troll Right Off the Tongue
• Allergic To Easy
• Let’s Dance
• On the Shoulders of Giants

I would highly recommend checking out the bonus features. You get to see a lot of behind the scenes of the making of this film. It’s truly amazing how this film was made.

I love the Boxtrolls. They are adorable and funny. Some of the other characters, like Snatcher, are not visually appealing. The people characters in this film are not “cute”, nor very likable. Snatcher’s cheese allergy is especially nasty.

I liked the story line. I would have liked to have seen less people and more of the Boxtrolls.

Although this is a “family friendly” film I think some of the scenes might be a bit intense or scary for little kids. I also think that seeing a man who enjoys dressing up in women’s clothing (Snatcher) a bit confusing too.

Have you seen The Boxtrolls? If so, what did you think of the film?

Here is the film’s trailer for your enjoyment.

Kimberly

*I received a free screener in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.

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