In Wendell & Wild, the genius of stop-motion specialist Henry Selick pops out of almost every frame, yet appreciating that requires waving away an overplotted, overpopulated narrative. Whereas The Nightmare Before Christmas had the story guidance of Tim Burton and Caroline Thompson and James and the Giant Peach and Coraline had the basis of books by Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman, respectively, Wendell & Wild is something of a Frankenstein’s monster, made from a long-gestating Selick story idea and a final script co-written by Selick and Jordan Peele. While Peele brings some freshness to the proceedings—especially in terms of representation for characters of color, who are rarely seen in the stop-motion world—he also burdens the project with far too complicated of a tale. Selick’s original idea of two demon brothers—voiced by Peele and his former sketch partner Keegan-Michael Key—gets awkwardly sewn onto the story of Kat (Lyric Ross), a troubled 13-year-old in a rust-belt ghost town who is given a second chance at a religious residential school. Kat’s a great character, boasting two poofs of emerald hair that are as bold as the boom box she carries on her shoulder. But she gets lost as the movie weaves in her connection to Wendell and Wild; their convoluted attempts to escape the underworld; the dynamics between the various students and teachers at the school; a past scandal involving Kat’s deceased parents and local politics; and, bizarrely, a conspiracy to turn the town into a private prison (owned by a Trump-like villain and his clearly Cruella-inspired wife). It isn’t until the movie tries to bring everything together during its climax that you fully realize how far it’s narratively gone off the rails. Still, for fans of animation—and stop-motion in particular—Wendell & Wild is worth watching just to get lost in the details, from that character design (the demons’ faces have the sharp, paper-cut style of kirigami) to an old, hissing radiator that wriggles like a caterpillar. In a Selick film, every object has a rich inner life; perhaps Wendell & Wild just has too many objects.
(10/29/2022)
