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Missing Link
In 2017, Oregon-based stop-motion animation wizards Laika came tantalisingly close to winning their first Oscar for Kubo And The Two Strings, a visually sumptuous rites-of-passage adventure evoking an age of Japanese feudal loyalty. For the studio's long-awaited follow-up, writer-director Chris Butler and his army of puppet fabricators, model-makers and creatives go west to London and America's Pacific Northwest for a rip-roaring Victorian-era expedition to validate the existence of mankind's primitive ancestry. Missing Link is a painstakingly crafted, technical tour-de-force, populated by gorgeously hand-crafted characters and incredibly detailed sets that range from a vast ocean liner and a rarefied gentleman's club to a rootin' tootin' saloon and an ice-laden temple. The amount of painstaking work crammed into each vibrantly painted frame is jaw-droppingly evident - it takes a small army one week to produce approximately four seconds of animated action. In terms of emotionally complex and challenging storytelling, Laika's fifth feature feels like a small but noticeable step back. Butler's relentlessly upbeat, family-friendly script trades in humour and boo-hiss villainy rather than inner turmoil and self-sacrifice, promoting core messages of acceptance and understanding in a world where mankind destroys the things it does not comprehend. Suave English gentleman Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman) and long-suffering assistant Lemuel Lint (David Walliams) nervously await a close encounter with the Loch Ness Monster. Photographic evidence of the aquatic beast's existence should secure Sir Lionel admission to an esteemed fellowship of high-society adventurers and explorers in the heart of London overseen by egotistical president Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry). The trip to bonnie Scotland ends in water-logged disaster and Mr Lint quits his position. Soon afterwards, Sir Lionel receives a tantalising letter, which beckons him to the Pacific Northwest to learn the truth about the fabled Sasquatch. He follows hand-written directions and encounters an 8ft, 630lb talking creature (Zach Galifianakis), who is desperate to travel to the fabled Himalayan valley of Shangri-La to be united with furry relatives, the yetis. "My pensmanship isn't great," apologises the soulful hulk. "Opposable thumbs, fat fingers..." Sir Lionel agrees to lead the globe-trotting odyssey and invites the forest-dwelling companion to pose as his new manservant, Mr Link. Feisty old fame Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), who possesses the only map of Shangri-La, joins Sir Lionel and Mr Link, unaware that they are being shadowed by a gun-toting assassin called Stenk (Timothy Olyphant). Missing Link goes down a treat like a cup of Sir Lionel's freshly brewed Earl Grey. Jackman plies his natural charm as the cane-wielding trailblazer, whose greatest discovery will be his own compassion. Saldana is a spunky, unconventional love interest and Galifianakis captures the sweetness of an evolutionary miracle, who takes Sir Lionel at his word. Literally.
