Under the town of Cheesebridge lives a community of Boxtrolls, who have raised an orphaned human boy named Eggs, because he wears an egg box.
When exterminators threaten to rid Cheesebridge of every last troll, Eggs must come to the surface to convince the townspeople that trolls are friendly and save the day.
We say, “It’s more fun and child friendly than ParaNorman.”
HOWE: The people who gave us ParaNorman from a couple of years back have now given us The Boxtrolls and I must say, I found this a little less scary for the little ones. There are still a few moments at the beginning, with the trolls little eyes glowing in the dark, but that’s about as frightening as it gets throughout the film.
FENIN: It’s not that scary dad. Can I have one as a pet?
HOWE: Err, no. They are way too messy to look after.
TAYLOR: It’s the stop motion animation that makes these films special. It’s easy to forget as you’re watching this colourful, whimsical and somewhat weird tale that this is not a cartoon. It’s a series of still photographs taken, in between moving the camera, the models, the little figurines –they’re sort of puppets without strings– as well as clay and other materials. This film is a mixed media work of art. As it turns out, it’s also pretty entertaining.
HOWE: You can add the fact that they are starting to attract some big names to voice the characters: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Sir Ben Kingsley to name a few. The talent shows in the cast’s comic timing, which makes it a little more entertaining than the past couple of movies like this.
My only concern is that both ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls are very similar in storyline and character (an outcast becomes accepted). If you have seen one, you have seen them both.
FENIN: I liked that the trolls made inventions out of bits and pieces. And it was very funny. I laughed a lot.
TAYLOR: All in all, a fine film with a good message for kids of all ages. It also happens to be amazing if you remind yourself once in a while of what it is you’re actually looking at.
– Taylor gives The Boxtrolls 3.5 red hats out of 5.
– Howe gives it 2.5 white hats out of 5.
– Fenin gives it 5 Boxtrolls out of 5.
The film is currently showing at the Galaxy Cinemas in Vernon.
– Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C. Their column runs in The Morning Star every Friday and Sunday.
