Generic characters stop the emotion in stop-motion 'Box Trolls'
You might expect that a stop-motion animated comedy all about little trolls in boxes would occasionally think outside of them.
But "Boxtrolls" remains content to safely color within the lines of its story, populated by an array of reliable stock characters and an army of generic title critters who, despite their resemblance to nasty gremlins, possess the pleasant personalities of lovable mogwais.
This handsomely furnished animated work marks the third and least impressive stop-motion feature from Laika studios, an Oregon-based company with a superb track record for producing two Oscar-nominated movies: "Coraline" and "ParaNorman."
Where "Coraline" presented a frightening lesson in getting what you wish for, and "ParaNorman" pitched a persuasive premise for peaceful tolerance, "Boxtrolls" takes on edgier issues such as classism and genocide as it bumps and grinds its way through a narrative maze as complex as the Victorian side streets in the quaint village of Cheesebridge.
There, a community of subterranean box trolls lives. They sneak out at night for food and rummage items. Taking their names from the labels on the boxes they wear, the trolls speak in cute gibberish and appear to be harmless.
However, the self-serving Archibald Snatcher (a growling Ben Kingsley) accuses the boxtrolls of kidnapping the infamous "Trubshaw Baby" years ago. He says the boxtrolls will continue to steal children and eat them if something can't be done.
Snatcher undoubtedly knows the boxtrolls pose no threat to humans, but like an early Sen. Joseph McCarthy, he fans the flames of fear and bigotry, then promises, with help from his henchmen (Nick Frost and Richard Ayoade), to eradicate the critters for the public good.
Not really for good, but for Snatcher's narcissistic thrill of eating fine cheeses and wearing a White Hat, the symbol of acceptance into the local aristocracy headed by the effete Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris).
Meanwhile, the movie's actual protagonist turns out to be a young British boy named Eggs, found as a baby and raised by the boxtrolls as one of their own. (Consider Eggs a poverty-row Lord Greystoke, raised by compassionate creatures from another species.)
Eggs (voiced by "Game of Thrones" actor Isaac Hempstead Wright) isn't the brightest shell in the carton. He believes himself to be one of the nondescript boxtrolls, a self-deception shattered upon the arrival of Lord Portley-Rind's spitfire little daughter Winnifred (Elle Fanning).
"You're not like them!" she shrieks to Eggs. She compares Eggs' hand to her own to prove her point before borrowing a famous line from Todd Browning's "Freaks" - "You're one of us!"
"Boxtrolls," loosely based on Alan Snow's book "Here Be Monsters," seems to be too aware of its responsibilities to be responsible. So, the characters wax about the importance of fathers (Eggs doesn't have one; Winnifred's ignores her) and hammer home the recycled idea that family can be more than the nuclear type.
Only near the end do co-directors Anthony "Open Season" Stacchi and Graham Annable finally step outside of that troll box.
In an amazing closing-credits sequence, lead animator Travis Knight goes through the laborious, time-consuming process of posing the stop-motion characters - kicked up to "The Flash" speed - after Snatcher's henchmen ponder the possibility that unseen giants might be guiding their every move.
And that, regrettably, is as "moving" as the story gets.
“The Boxtrolls”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Nick Frost
Directed by: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi
Other: A Focus Features release. Rated PG. 100 minutes