Laughs a-plenty in Laika’s Link
Missing Link (PG, 95 mins) Directed by Chris Butler Reviewed by James Croot ★★★1⁄2
Electricity, suffrage, evolution – these are ‘‘dark days’’ for the The Optimates Club. Concerned at the further erosion of their quest to introduce good British table manners the world over, the London gentleman’s organisation’s head Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry) feels honour-bound to stop Sir Lionel Frost’s (Hugh Jackman) latest adventure – lest it actually succeed.
Sure, the tea-sipping, fearless adventurer and photographer has seemingly frittered away his family fortune on flights of fancy, but this latest trip to the forests of Washington State in search of a sasquatch could provide irrefutable proof of humans descending from great apes, rather than just ‘‘great men’’.
The Lord’s response, as a man standing for everything that is civilised, is simple, ‘‘I’ll hire a thug to kill him’’.
And so begins this latest
animated adventure from America’s answer to Aardman – Laika. The stop-motion experts behind such subversive delights as Coraline, ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings have come up with another crowdpleaser, albeit one that doesn’t quite scale the heights of some of their back catalogue.
Yes, there’s still a wicked combination of pratfalls, sight gags and verbal humour (as well as an end credits behind-the-scenes glimpse showcasing the incredible work that goes into making a movie like this), but this hybrid fish-out-of-water, buddy comedy lacks the darker edge or truly memorable moments (an inventive, extended literal cliffhanger notwithstanding) that made Laika’s earlier flicks some of the best family films of the past decade.
A Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) soundtrack adds undoubted atmosphere, and the eclectic vocal cast, which also includes Emma Thompson, Zoe Saldana, Timothy Olyphant, David Walliams, Matt Lucas and Zach Galifianakis, do impress.
It’s hard though, not to draw comparisons in plot and tone to one of Aardman’s efforts – The Pirates! Band of Misfits (I swear I saw that film’s Dodo appear in at least one scene). That’s no bad thing but this lacks that film’s gag quotient and truly venomous villain.
Still, it’s extremely difficult to dislike a movie where a key chase scene involves someone shouting, ‘‘the people we don’t want here, are trying to leave…’’