The Missing Link
Ten Second Reviews: A beautifully crafted film with a sweet story at its heart. The Missing Link perfectly is filled with things for kids, things for adults and things cinephiles. Definitely worth a watch!
Stop motion is one of those cinematic techniques that fills me with wonder. I think the main reason is because it reminds me of being a kid and making my action figures play out these giant and elaborate stories. There’s an ever so slight mismatch of the perfection that you might get when watching a computer animated film that lends itself to an organic and interesting quality (although Into the Spiderverse has just proved that needn’t be the case). The Missing Link doesn’t sacrifice being an incredible film for this technique. It is stunning all the way through and the story just serves as a lovely vehicle to display this art piece.
Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) travels the world looking for mythical creatures so that he may join the ranks of the world’s greatest explorers. While he seems to find all the creatures he seeks, he has a bit of an issue collecting evidence. When he receives a letter detailing the location of “Sasquatch” he vows to return with proof on the condition he is inducted to the society of great men. With sneers form his would be peers, he sets off to find The Missing Link. When he does find the creature he discovers it to be a literate and intelligent creature who needs help finding his way home. Sir Lionel agrees to help and the pair set off on a journey to discover the whereabouts of the rest of his kind.
The film revolves around a fairly simple story that is well told. It does its part to offer a sweet moral for younger audiences while being consistently funny so that no one will get bored. What the movie really offers its audience is a masterclass in film design. As the first scene played out I found myself slack jawed at how beautiful the animation and design is. From the character models to the sets, not to mention the actual motion direction, the film is so wonderfully constructed that you might find yourself distracted by it at certain points. To be perfectly honest, in a particularly cynical moment, I found myself wondering why so much effort had been put into this kids film. I quickly caught myself and remembered how in awe I had been watching certain animated films growing up and how, more often that not, it was the ones that “bumped the lamp” that I remember today. All audiences, no matter their age, deserve films that are made with as much love and care for their craft as The Missing Link. I could quite easily wax lyrical about the movie in a scene by scene breakdown but, for the sake of a digestible review that doesn’t spoil the whole thing, I just want to focus on several small things the film does that make it feel so engaging.
The first is the scene transitions. This might seem like a bizarre place to focus any attention but on rare occasions you will be watching a film and see a pretty transition and your brain (or at least my brain) goes “oooh, pretty”. When your lucky you catch a couple of these in a film but this was filled with them. From the creative use of map transitions to scenery interlinking different scenes and a beautiful “shot” during a train journey, the transitions effortlessly show the passing of time and illustrate the characters movements around the world. There are countless moments of inspired design that really serve to highlight the love for the craft of filmmaking on display form both Laika and the director, Chris Butler.
This concretely plays into the second thing I want to mention. With the standard being so high for animated films in the past twelve months, I was excited to see a stop motion film throw its hat in the ring. What I wasn’t expecting was the beautiful interplay that would take place between traditional stop motion and CGI work. It’s use only served to better emphasise the puppetry and was only seemingly used to enhance certain scenes instead of replacing the stop motion work. This is a wonderful example of taking an art form and using modern technology to elevate it as opposed to replace it. Where In to the Spiderverse used old techniques to give a more organic and nuanced feel to its animation, The Missing Link uses technology to give the film a level of refinement and certain moments that it could not have achieved otherwise. Similar to Spiderman, it is a celebration of the magical qualities that traditional and physical techniques can have when combined with modern and computer generated elements.
I imagine that it would be very difficult to sit and watch this film without enjoying some part of it. It has a light and fun tone coupled with a few heart of gold messages. It is stunning to look at and it seems to have come from a place of real love for the craft. Go and see this one to remind studios that we want beautiful and engaging films for audiences of all ages!
