This film was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Feature, losing to Big Hero 6. There will be spoilers ahead:
I'm of decidedly mixed feelings about this film. On the whole, I did find it enjoyable. The animation is good, the voice work was extremely good, the other technical aspects were decent, the pacing was good. Yet I couldn't escape the relative ordinariness of the plot and the script.
It's an obvious and somewhat derivative script, for one thing. Outsiders shunned by the world and even hunted down for being different. One of them, our hero, decides to fight back, contends against their enemies and wins out.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this. The basic plots of some of the greatest films, books and plays would sound almost as ordinary if stripped to their basics. The problem here is more or less in the execution. Unfortunately, the film hinges on literally every adult being crazy, evil, stupid or some combination of those or it falls apart. Not one of them is able to summon up any sense except one of the main villain's henchmen and he comes to that rather late in the film.
There are two characters who show any determination or intellect for most of the film-Eggs, a human boy raised by the box-trolls and Winnie, the daughter of the town leader, a cheese-obsessed nitwit with the sense God gave a light bulb. Lord Portley-Rind is led down the garden path by the villain, Snatcher (even the character names make plot points obvious from the start). It's obvious just who Eggs is almost immediately and it's just a matter of the film running its course.
There's little in the way of suspense to this and, depending on just how many films like this you've seen, you can just about tick off plot devices as you go, until the guaranteed moment when the villain receives his comeuppance and sentiment turns around in the favor of the outcasts. There's a fair amount to like here, but I wish they'd done a bit more work on the script.
This film is available on a Blu-Ray/DVD combo and it looks particularly nice on Blu-Ray.
I'm of decidedly mixed feelings about this film. On the whole, I did find it enjoyable. The animation is good, the voice work was extremely good, the other technical aspects were decent, the pacing was good. Yet I couldn't escape the relative ordinariness of the plot and the script.
It's an obvious and somewhat derivative script, for one thing. Outsiders shunned by the world and even hunted down for being different. One of them, our hero, decides to fight back, contends against their enemies and wins out.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this. The basic plots of some of the greatest films, books and plays would sound almost as ordinary if stripped to their basics. The problem here is more or less in the execution. Unfortunately, the film hinges on literally every adult being crazy, evil, stupid or some combination of those or it falls apart. Not one of them is able to summon up any sense except one of the main villain's henchmen and he comes to that rather late in the film.
There are two characters who show any determination or intellect for most of the film-Eggs, a human boy raised by the box-trolls and Winnie, the daughter of the town leader, a cheese-obsessed nitwit with the sense God gave a light bulb. Lord Portley-Rind is led down the garden path by the villain, Snatcher (even the character names make plot points obvious from the start). It's obvious just who Eggs is almost immediately and it's just a matter of the film running its course.
There's little in the way of suspense to this and, depending on just how many films like this you've seen, you can just about tick off plot devices as you go, until the guaranteed moment when the villain receives his comeuppance and sentiment turns around in the favor of the outcasts. There's a fair amount to like here, but I wish they'd done a bit more work on the script.
This film is available on a Blu-Ray/DVD combo and it looks particularly nice on Blu-Ray.