Movie Review: “The Boxtrolls” (Rated PG) - East Idaho News
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Movie Review: “The Boxtrolls” (Rated PG)

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bomojo 092514 boxtrolls?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1411644278500Focus Features(NEW YORK) — A mix of CGI and stop-motion animation, The Boxtrolls answers the age-old question: “What would happen if Boxtrolls raised a human baby?”
 
OK, so nobody has really ever asked that question, and chances are pretty good you’d never heard of a boxtroll until you saw the marketing for this movie, or perhaps read Alan Snow’s book, Here Be Monsters, the film’s source material.
 
Boxtrolls are subterranean-dwelling, box-wearing trolls who only ascend into the streets of the Victorian-era town of Cheesebridge to terrify the residents — at least, that’s what the residents are led to believe. The truth is, Boxtrolls are fun-loving creatures who have built a semi-fantastical underground world comprised almost entirely of people’s trash.  But because they’re trolls who wear boxes, they’re quite easy to vilify — especially by Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), who wants a seat at the table with Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris), the snobby, de facto mayor of Cheesebridge.
 
Portley-Rind and his cohorts wear white hats and, as the town’s name suggests, are obsessed with cheese. If Snatcher can convince the town he’s gotten rid of the Boxtrolls, he can earn his white hat and, quite literally, sit at the table in Lord Portley-Rind’s tasting room and eat fine cheese.
 
Snatcher gets the whole town behind him when the Boxtrolls apparently kidnap the Trubshaw baby. They outfit the child with his own box, one with the word “eggs” on it,” and lovingly raise “Eggs” as their own.  As he gets older, the Boxtrolls are nearly extinct, thanks to Snatcher. Now 11, it’s time for Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright)  to ascend into the streets of Cheesebridge to try to find his people — or rather, trolls. He’ll get help from Lord Portley-Rind’s 11-year-old neglected daughter, Winnie (Elle Fanning), but Snatcher is so relentlessly driven to become a White Hat, he’s not about to let a couple of children get in his way.
 
The Boxtrolls comes from LAIKA Films, the same studio behind Coraline and ParaNorman, two movies I think children under the age of six have no business seeing.  I’ll put The Boxtrolls in that same category, for some vivid imagery and content I think will be nightmare-inducing, though this is also the funniest of LAIKA’s films, with a script filled with memorable dialogue, even though Boxtrolls essentially speak gibberish.  Overall, like its predecessors, The Boxtrolls still offers plenty of entertainment value for children and adults.
 
Three-and-a-half out of five stars.


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