"Wendell & Wild" brings together such an appealingly eclectic collection of pieces and parts that it's pretty easy to forgive its convoluted plot and herky-jerky storytelling.
Debuting on Netflix this week, the animated horror-comedy adventure is the first directorial effort from stop-motion master Henry Selick since 2009's highly regarded "Coraline."
It features voice work by the "Key & Peele" comedy duo of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele — the latter evolving to become one of the top directors in the horror genre and co-writer (with Selick) and a producer of "Wendell & Wild" — as the movie's demonic but mostly harmless namesake characters, as well as by "This Is Us" alum Lyric Ross as its young protagonist, Kat Elliot.
And the character designs by Pablo Lobato are fresh, funky and fun — none more so than the green-haired Kat.
We are not introduced first to her but to her parents, the owners of the popular Rust Bank Brewery, which they refuse to sell to a company that would like to turn it into a prison.
"I told 'em, 'More beer, less prisons,'" Delroy Elliot (Gary Gatewood) reports to his wife, Wilma (Gabrielle Dennis).
Soon, we see the couple driving on a dark-and-stormy night with young Kat in the back seat. When their vehicle skids off a bridge and into the water below, Wilma is able to free Kat before she and her husband sink to the bottom before the young girl's eyes.
Years later, Kat, who blames herself for what happened, is returning to the now economically depressed town of Rust Bank to attend the Rust Bank Catholic School for Girls, where she is more than happy to make waves by blasting her dad's beloved boombox, the Cyclops, with its big speaker painted scarily like an eye.
A group of girls led by Siobhan (Tamara Smart, "A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting") tries to bring her into their fold, suggesting she go by "KK" as part of a fresh new start.
She doesn't love it.
Moments later, she saves one of the girls from a falling brick, being rewarded with an enthusiastic hug.
She doesn't love it.
While she initially suspects the brick was the work of the person in the tower — the school's lone boy, Raul (Sam Zelaya) — she takes to him more than to the girls.
She also finds she has a connection to the underworld — specifically to Wendell (Key) and his little brother, Wild (Peele) — as she is what's known as a Hellmaiden. They see in her a chance to realize their dreams of escaping their domineering father, Buffalo Belzer (Ving Rhames, "Pulp Fiction"), the Ruler of the Scream Faire, and creating their own, less terrifying amusement park.
(Rhames' voice is so distinctly familiar from all those Arby's ads that you can't help wondering when Buffalo Belzer will get to something about "the meats.")
Then there's the ongoing scheming by Siobhan's parents, Irmgard (Maxine Peake) and Lane Klaxton (David Harewood), to take over the town to build a huge private prison, Klax Korp.
Having no shortage of characters, "Wendell & Wild" also mixes in a the school's headmaster, Father Bests (James Hong, "Kung Fu Panda"), who has his own agenda; Raul's hard-working single mother, Marianna (Natalie Martinez), a member of the town council; Sister Helley (Angela Bassett, "BoJack Horseman"), a nun at the school who has secrets and takes a shine to Kat; and Manberg (Igal Naor), the school's demon-hunting janitor.
All of the movie's story elements come together ... only so smoothly, and it's a little challenge to be invested in them beyond the basic hope that things work out for Kat.
What is smoother — and what makes it pretty easy to recommend "Wendell & Wild" — is the stop-motion work. As all stop-motion films do, this one has that "well, how did they do THAT?" appeal and has you appreciating, once again, how much time and patience must have gone into making so many of the sequences work.
And while it's certainly a welcome occurrence to have Key and Peale together again — along with several seasons of the hilarious Key & Peele, they shared the screen in the 2016 action-comedy "Keanu" — the pair generates only a few laughs here as they voice characters who look like very exaggerated versions of themselves. It is fairly fun when they get high on their own supply of a hair cream with the power to resurrect the dead, however.
More importantly, Ross, who portrayed the adopted Deja Pearson on the aforementioned hit NBC drama series, brings both confidence and relatable vulnerability to KK, er, Kat.
From the creative side, it's nice to see Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas," "James and the Giant Peach") in the director's chair again, even if this isn't his finest work.
"Wendell & Wild" certainly is creative — and more than a bit wild — and that's enough.
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'WENDELL & WILD'
2.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some thematic material, violence, substance use and brief strong language)
Running time: 1:45
How to watch: On Netflix Friday
