A mysterious forest. A kidnapped child. An evil sorceress. They’re all the ingredients of the kind of classic fantasy epic that has been the staple of children’s stories for eons: Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, The Neverending Story — you name it.
But what else is there to do with this formula? How can one possibly make it novel in a landscape crowded with high-concept, high-speed animated movies? LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio behind such acclaimed films as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, has wisely decided that, instead of chasing the tide, it will create its own waves. And its latest film from Kubo director Travis Knight, the breathtaking new fantasy epic Wildwood, is a triumphant tidal wave for the medium.
