Movie review: Smart, visually stunning 'Missing Link' misses out on emotions
“Missing Link” - ★ ★ ½
Men, women and not-so-mythical beasts have world-spanning adventures in Laika Entertainment's ingeniously wrought and intermittently enthralling “Missing Link.”
Although it breaks new ground visually, elements of the tale don't always meld with grace. The film is a rich-looking blend of stop-motion animation, enhanced with computer-generated effects and 3-D printing techniques. Yet these are all at the service of a perhaps over-intellectualized, emotionally wanting plot and a too-frequent and too-dark undercurrent of threatened violence.
Chris Butler wrote and directed “Missing Link” and also designed the characters. His first film as writer/co-director was Laika's “ParaNorman,” about a boy who felt like an outcast and saw ghosts. Here he creates two more outcasts — a Victorian era explorer whose views aren't accepted by the adventurers' club he longs to join, and a lonely, last-of-his-breed sasquatch who wants to leave the Pacific Northwest and join his cousins in the Himalayas.
The question is whether Butler's fable weaves its wit, intellect and emotions in a fully engaging way. The answer is only sometimes.
Only Zach Galifianakis, voicing the sasquatch character Mr. Link, keeps his naive heart firmly on his, er, fur, at all times. Other characters seem to explain the plot rather than live it.
In a ravishing prologue, Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman), a smug yet dashing British explorer, sips tea in a canoe as the Loch Ness monster looms above and then gives him and his manservant a really wild ride. But the fusty old men in London's Optimates Club don't believe Sir Lionel's tales of Nessies or sasquatches or yetis. Nor do they accept evolution. He vows to prove them all wrong, especially Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry), the dean of the group.
A letter arrives suggesting Sir Lionel might find the last surviving sasquatch/Bigfoot in Washington state. The two meet cute in the piney woods, where Sir Lionel is shocked that Mr. Link, as he dubs him, reads and speaks English. Mr. Link, who would really rather be called “Susan,” after a lady prospector who once smiled at him, begs the explorer to take him to the Himalayas, where he can join his probable cousins, the yeti. “I'm lonely,” he says.
Moved by a mix of empathy and ambition, Sir Lionel agrees. This takes the pair on a journey, first to see Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), the strong-minded widow of a rival explorer who has a map they need. She joins them as they travel back to London on a voyage that features a terrific-looking storm and a violent confrontation with a hit man (Timothy Olyphant) sent by Lord Piggot-Dunceby. Still stalked by the hit man, the trio then cross Europe by train, India by elephant and the Himalayas on foot.
“Missing Link” is visually stunning, with well-realized characters and humor that really does work. Yet somehow, ambitious as it is, the film doesn't sail easily enough between the yak-poo jokes and its more serious themes of loneliness and otherness. “Missing Link” is impressive, but it's still missing something.
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Starring: Zach Galifianakis, Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana, Timothy Olyphant, Stephen Fry
Directed by: Chris Butler
Other: A Laika Studios/Annapurna Pictures release. Rated PG. 95 minutes