The Student News Site of Gannon University since 1947

THE GANNON KNIGHT

The Student News Site of Gannon University since 1947

THE GANNON KNIGHT

The Student News Site of Gannon University since 1947

THE GANNON KNIGHT

‘Boxtrolls’ stroll into the box office

One of the most anticipated movies of the fall season arrived at Tinseltown.

“The Boxtrolls” uses stop-motion animation and is directed by up-and-coming directors Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi. This film truly lived up to the hype.

The story revolves around a young boy who was orphaned as a baby and taken in by a species known as Boxtrolls.

According to the story, these creatures live underground, sleep by day and scavenge for knick-knacks by night.

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However, the life of a Boxtroll is not without conflict. They are antagonized, by Archibald Snatcher, local “exterminator” looking for prestige in the form of a white hat worn by high-society citizens.

Over the course of the movie, these Boxtrolls continue to be captured.

Eggs, named for the word on the front of his box, grows up under the guidance of a Boxtroll named Fish.

Eventually, Eggs earns the right to travel to the upper world where he meets Winnie, a curious daughter of local white-hat Lord Portley-Rind.

Together, they discover the plight of Snatcher and his henchmen, which is to capture all Boxtrolls so that they may build Snatcher’s robot, which he uses to storm the Boxtrolls’ underground lair.

The animation of the film is extremely well done.

Even the tiniest details, like the shutters on the windows and the lace on a woman’s dress, are seen in incredible detail – truly a difficult task in stop-motion animation.

Some have equated this form of animation to Tim Burton’s style, with lanky characters and over-exaggerated details, though this movie is a little more subdued in those areas.

It’s a nice blend of two different styles that I found quite interesting, mixing regular animation and live-action shooting.

In terms of a storyline, it gets a little hairy since there are a number of different plotlines occurring at once.

The main story, of course, is Eggs trying to find his identity. Eggs has been raised as a Boxtroll, but comes to the realization that he is, in fact, something else.

He goes through this search while fighting Snatcher and protecting his Boxtroll family.

In the meantime, Snatcher continues his quest for a so-called white-hat by capturing Boxtrolls and eating cheese, which is what the white-hats are most known for.

Finally, Eggs learns his backstory; how Snatcher attempted to force Eggs’ dad, the local inventor, to create a device to capture Boxtrolls and threatened to kidnap his son if he doesn’t.

As a result, Eggs is given to the Boxtrolls for protection.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie.

The cast was very well-assembled, though there were not a lot of very famous names, aside from Tracy Morgan and Ben Kingsley.

There were a lot of very fun scenes and there was a good balance of funny and emotional scenes.

This is a movie I would very strongly recommend to any fun-loving person with an imaginative mind.

 

TOM BARTON

[email protected]

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