I Hope This Movie Does Extremely Well

Review of Wildwood

Charlie hopes Laika’s Wildwood succeeds because its painstaking stop-motion animation is extraordinary. After watching Coraline for the first time in preparation, he sees Wildwood as an evolution of Laika’s work—and possibly the best stop-motion film ever made.

The story follows Prue, who ventures into an enchanted forest with Curtis after crows abduct her younger brother, Mac. Charlie is struck by how dark the adventure becomes. Despite its family-film appearance, it features shocking deaths and substantial bloodshed. One especially brutal death stunned the theater; he jokes that the characters aren’t coming back through “friendship and magic”—they’re gone to Valhalla.

The centerpiece is a roughly 20-minute stop-motion battle featuring arrows, cannons, trebuchets, and gruesome violence. Charlie compares its scale to major fantasy battles in The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, and marvels at the years of effort the sequence must have taken. The danger feels real because characters can—and do—die.

His main complaint is Prue and Mac’s parents, whom he sees as frustratingly passive. The film reveals that they made a pact with a grieving forest witch: they could have children, but the witch would claim their second child. When Mac is taken, the parents accept his loss rather than fight to save him. Charlie contrasts their surrender with Prue’s determination not to give up. He also wishes the Governor and his assistant—an entertaining pair—had more screen time after an early sequence.

Overall, Charlie loves the story, characters, world, and visuals, and hopes Wildwood becomes a box-office hit. His verdict: it deserves to be a major success.

Personality Featured

Charlie (MoistCr1TiKaL / penguinz0) — reviewer and narrator.