"Wildwood" REVIEW

Published on 10/25/2026 

Written by: Braylon Mitchell 

Directed by: Travis Knight 

Cast: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Maya Erskine, Awkwafina, Richard E. Grant, Mahershala Ali, Jermaine Clemant, Charlie Day, Tom Waits, etc. 

Plot: The adventures of Prue McKeel as she sets off to the forests outside Portland to find her kidnapped brother. 

REVIEW 

The studio behind some of the most beloved stop-motion films of all time such as "Coraline" and "Kubo and the Two Strings", since their inception LAIKA has been one of the leading forces in enriching the growing public perception that animation deserves to be seen as cinema and one of the preliminary forms of artistic labor of love, for children and adults alike. With their newest film "Wildwood", LAIKA has reached a new pinnacle of artistic reverence in animation. Developed over the course of sixteen years, six years of physical production, and with a whopping hundred million dollar budget—considering the quality of director Travis Knight and LAIKA's track record of filmmaking, "Wildwood" had no choice other than to look absolutely spectacular. Setting a new record with the longest runtime of a stop-motion film at two hours and twelve minutes, it's no surprise that this film's animation is stunning but nonetheless I'm somehow still taken aback at the level of meticulous detail, backbreaking passion, and scale that went into making this look incomprehensibly gorgeous and full of life. I've long been dumbfounded by the craft, passion, and pure patience that goes into stop-motion filmmaking. To me, it's no hyperbole to say that stop-motion animation is of the utmost pedigree of artistic impressiveness. This film might be the crème de la crème of what stop-motion can be at the height of its excellence. It is no question to be that visually, this film contains some of the greatest animation I've ever seen. It is a masterpiece of stop-motion filmmaking, there is no question of that. The long, climatic battle sequence in the third act is a clear example. As a film and as a story, I found it to be rather standard and expected as a young adult fantasy story, but even on its narrative front while I wouldn't describe it as strong I wouldn't say it's weak either. The fantastical world building is immersive, and surprisingly the film is quite mature. Not only in its unwavering to include violence and death that feels more belonging to fantasy films of the 1980s, not the 2020s where that kind of darkness is often ignored or excluded in big budget animated films—the story contains mature, grounded emotional messages that culminate in the protagonist's character arc concluding in a very real place of reflection and growth. I suspect that "Wildwood" will contuine to grow richer both for myself and for audiences at large with time, attention, and praise. Go see this film, it's worth seeing on the big screen. 

THREE BEST ELEMENTS

• The animation. Incredible, breathtaking stop-motion animation that doesn't waste the rare advantage of being the most well-produced, large scale, and detailed means of its artistic medium without the passion and personality required to bring bountiful life to this world, these characters, and this story. 

• The production design. In stop-motion animation cinema, the very physical art direction and production design that goes into these sets isn't recgonized nearly enough as it should. This film's production design is stellar. 

• Dario Marianelli's score and the soundtrack. A whimsical, engaging, epic fantastical score that does a great job at sweeping us up into a spirit of adventure. Also, the film has some wonderfully fitting folksy/hippster songs originally written for the film. The film partly takes place in Portland, Oregon after all. The song "The Better of Bravery" by The Decemberists that plays over the ending scene was a standout. I really like that song, been listening to it on Spotify for the past few days quite a bit. 

WORST ELEMENT 

• The screenplay/dialouge. Not weak per se, but definitely not a strength. I found much of the dialouge between characters to be too obvious and eye-rollingly simple. 

RATING

8/10

For animation fans it's a must see, buddy!