Review: Missing Link (2019) + Chris Butler Discussion

Missing Link (2019) + Discussion with Chris Butler

I am a huge animation fan, especially films/project that try to do new things with animation, and, as such, I am a devotee of animation studio, Laika. The studio's last film, Kubo and the Two Strings, is one of my absolute favourites  (as seen in my previous post, it is in my top 10 animated of all-time). This is why I was very excited to get tickets to a special TIFF screening of the studio's new film, Missing Link, with a special discussion / Q&A with the film's director/writer, Chris Butler.

As with most of my experiences attending these special screenings, the discussion with Butler after the film was fascinating and delved deep into both the philosophy of Laika - to push the boundaries of animation, and specifically stop-animation - as well as Butler's own ideas on story-telling and how they were applied in Missing Link. To be completely honest, other than the gorgeous animation in the film (which one would expect from a Laika production), I wasn't blown away by Missing Link. Butler's anecdotes and discussion actually helped to increase my appreciation for what the film was trying to accomplish, however, for me, it didn't quite live up to the studio's previous great successes.

Missing Link is about grand adventurer, Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) who sets out to find the Sasquatch after receiving a child's hand-written letter about a sighting of the creature. Frost quickly finds the creature/Mr. Link (Zach Galafianakis) and discovers Link, who can read and write, was actually the one who sent him the letter. Link is a lonely creature and wants Frost's help to travel to the Himalayas to live with fellow creatures there - his Yeti cousins. The film is very much a world-traveling, buddy-adventure story about the two. Along the way they are joined by Adelina (Zoe Saldana) and pursued by classic antagonists who want to ruin Frost and capture Link.

This film is worth seeing for the animation alone. It is absolutely incredible and the integration between stop-animation and CG is once again pushed to the next level by Laika. The colours are bright and pop, everything is brilliantly textured, and the action and emotions of the characters are created in mesmerizing fashion. The story itself, though it is the first to have adults as its main characters, is actually much lighter than in previous outings. The humour too is somewhat more goofy - mostly as through Link. For this reason, I found the film a bit light on substance - it lacked the edge of previous films that made it appeal to adults. I do think that children will enjoy the film very much, but for a studio with such great previous successes, I wished it had just a little bit more to grab onto.