Directed by: Chris Butler
Runtime: 95 wonderfully-named minutes
Children’s films can be extraordinarily charming. Missing Link, the latest film from Laika, who brought you Coraline (2009) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), skates around quite gleefully with its charm, without quite hitting the highs of the greatest tier of animated classics.
Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman, playing a brilliantly named character) is a monster hunter, back before Knights had Pokémon to catch. He is refreshingly not incompetent, although quite tunnel-visioned. He’s played by Jackman with tones that make him sound arrogant and boastful, but Frost generally seems to care for his companions—man and horse alike—although he doesn’t seem to mind putting them in danger. His efforts to prove the existence of mythical creatures has, thus far, proven quite ineffective at getting him true recognition at a club for “Great Men”, chaired by Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry, playing another wonderfully named character who Fry could have named himself). Frost receives a letter suggesting the existence of a Bigfoot, or the Missing Link between humanity and its ancestors, which takes him across to the United States, and from there we go.
There is no great hunt for the Bigfoot (Zach Galifianakis), who receives another satisfying name, in one of the funniest, but sweetest, moments of the film. Instead, the tension in their journey comes from a bounty hunter, Willard Stenk (Timothy Olyphant, keeping the trend alive), and their desire to get this Bigfoot to the Himalayas so it can find Yetis, which might just be related to him.
Laika often seem to try and pump their films with mature themes. One of my biggest complaints with films aimed at families is that they treat children, so full of curiosity and thoughts about the world, like piggot-duncebies. At the core of Frost’s personal journey is the realisation that perhaps he should not look for approval from other “Great Men”, and should instead try being a great man himself. Piggot-Dunceby serves as a representation of male ego, and how it will try to keep itself from shattering even in the place of the advancement of knowledge. We should vote more of these out of parliament.
The animation is often thrilling and inventive. An encounter with the Loch Ness Monster cannot be described as unexciting. And there is a bar-fight that is simply just Laika showing off. It’s got a slight stop-motion feel to it that makes me think of things like Wallace & Gromit, which brings me to my biggest “complaint” about the film: it just doesn’t compare in terms of hilarity to the masterpieces it draws your mind to. I did thoroughly enjoy a line from Emma Thompson, who is always exceptional: “The people we did not want here are getting away! Stop them!” And Bigfoot crashing through a wall got a big laugh from the kids in my screening. But apart from that, a lot of the laughs attempted by the film seem to fall fairly flat, and you’ve got Stephen Fry right there.
There is charm in the details. Looks between animated characters reveal years of depth and personality that the script sets up, but doesn’t quite as effectively capture. It’s there if you want it. Perhaps most impressive about it is that the script was penned by the same person who directed, Chris Butler, which for such a complicated undertaking suggests that there is extraordinary talent here. He also both wrote and co-directed ParaNorman (2012) with Sam Bell, which took home an Academy Award, so I’m sure he’s fine with my suggestion of re-writes. And you’ve got to give a tip of the hat to those character names.
Missing Link didn’t enchant me like some animated films have in the past. I don’t think it will reach status as an all-time classic. But if you’re looking for something to take the kids to over Easter, or even watch yourself as you lament the talent of a man who can both write and direct such a complicated undertaking on his own, then you can do far worse than this film. You might even think I am missing a link to suggest that it doesn’t reach the Himalayan heights I suggest.
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