LAIKA is one of my favorite movie studios working today. Coraline, ParaNorman, and Kubo and the Two Strings are some of the best animated movies I’ve ever seen. (Boxtrolls is fine.) But LAIKA has never done well financially. When they announced The Missing Link, an adventure movie with the studios first all-star cast, I thought they were trying to make a more mainstream and marketable movie to fix their financial woes.
Nope! Instead, they made their most niche and unsuccessful movie yet! It also happens to be my least favorite of the bunch.
This movie is BEAUTIFUL. That is the movie’s main draw, and it’s greatest strength. The sweeping landscapes and charming locales held my attention when the story did all it could to put me to sleep. I don’t understand how stop-motion studios can spend so much time and money crafting such beautiful worlds without making sure the story is something worth telling. I felt the same way about last year’s Early Man. Such detailed worlds to tell such a forgettable story. The voice talent do an amazing job, but they don’t have much to work with.
6/10
Movie Mort 