Marval Movie

The movie opens on a dark rainy night where a box starts to move and a crying baby is in its arms, it runs to its home but there is a pursuer. The creature means the child no harm and it, as well as the rest of the Trolls raise it amongst them. The baby grows into a boy that has his own box that has "EGG'S" on it, so his name is Egg's (Isaac Hempstead-Wright).

The villain is a pest catcher named Archibald Snatcher. This is an immensely entertaining villain, he has a classic Childcatcher design and is played by Sir Ben Kinsley and you would never guess. He stretches out his pronunciations and wants to be a part of high society. This is a villain that we have technically seen a few times but it is in the execution and superb performance, both in the voice and animation that make him a delight to view.

The Trolls themselves are a charming creation. They are ugly  but they also have character to them, as the title would imply they spend their time in boxes, they become their hermit crabs shells and whatever is on the box becomes their names i.e. Shoe, Fish, Ink etc. The main group of them are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker and Steve Blum, two exceptional voice talents that own the role of portraying weird, croaky sounding creatures.

Later while scouting for supplies Egg’s see’s something that he hasn’t seen much of before, another human, but also a girl, named Winnie. Winnie is a cute; upper class girl that’s a little chubbier that we've seen leading girl characters before and has a Shirley Temple look to her but she’s also got a dark edge with her gruesome imagination and obsession with the gory. Elle Fanning puts on her very convincing British accent and adds such delightful energy to the role.

Laika are the leading studio in stop motion animation, there have been other studio's that have created other stop motion movies but Laika souly create stop motion movies. The people working at Laika are some of the greatest craftsmen that are working today, nearly everything on-screen has had to been crafted, from the characters, the buildings and the clothes they wear. Then when that is done they have to be animated, by hand, one frame at a time. There is more love, care and skill put into each and every frame of this movie that there is in the average release of most movies.

Grace Randolph criticized the trailer for Boxtrolls, saying that the Trolls were too ugly for the mainstream children to like and said "It’s a shame the people at Laika are disappearing into their own heads". Well I commend them for going to new and interesting places, places that will take children and adults to and have the craft and talent that don’t come easy but is an expression of love to the art, if they are indeed disappearing into their heads then I will follow them there.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4