By Danny Villalobos
Staff Writer
Rating: B-
See it if: You like stop motion
Skip it if: You can’t stand weak scripts
May the record show that I have a soft spot for stop-motion animation and “Missing Link” is a movie with puppy eyes that are keeping me from going as harshly on it as I should.
In search to solidify his place among a club of adventurers, Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) takes a journey to the Pacific Northwest, when he receives an anonymous letter detailing the existence of Bigfoot. Little did he know the letter was written by Bigfoot himself, Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis). Both head on a journey to get Mr. Link safely to the hidden mythical city of Shangri-La before a cowboy takes Mr. Link as a trophy.
This is a visually pleasing movie, frame by frame. Kudos to Laika studios for every frame, puppet and effect they’ve managed to produce.
For those unaware of Laika studios, they are the masterminds behind 2016’s “Kubo and the Two Strings,” which was nominated in the best visual effects category at the Oscars, as well as 2009’s “Coraline,” which still stands with a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Laika’s focus on making quality stop-motion films is simply magnanimous. There are videos that go behind the scenes that you can watch right now, which show the amount of work that goes into each frame.
Even with its technical prowess in stop-motion, one thing that makes this movie barely swim is its weak script.
Characters seem to be missing conflict with each other. Let me explain in brief: it’s established in the film that Lionel Frost mistreats every assistant that has worked for him. Good setup right there; that should then lead to a coming fallout with his new assistant, Mr. Link; but no, that doesn’t happen. In fact, the only time when Frost is reminded he’s treating Mr. Link like crap is when his ex-lover Adelina Fortnight tells him, it never comes from Link himself, which made it very underwhelming.
Overall, it’s visually stunning and every person who poured hours of hard work into this animation deserve two rounds of applause. One for the technical skill and one more for having a job that requires them to play around with puppets all day.
Hopefully next time, Laika can put the same effort into their script.
