The team at Laika Studios have specialized in transporting us to worlds we might not otherwise know existed – the warped other realm of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and the ghostly planes of Paranorman. For the company’s latest, The Boxtrolls, the trip is to the subterranean existence of some misunderstood creatures living in a strange, paranoid town.
Adapted from Alan Snow’s book Here Be Monsters, the film introduces the Boxtrolls, beasties who live underneath the charming streets of Cheesebridge and who crawl out of the sewers at night to steal what the townspeople hold most dear: their children and their cheeses. At least, that’s the legend the humans have always believed. In truth, the creatures are a community of lovable oddballs who are raising as one of their own an abandoned and orphaned human boy named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright).
When the Boxtrolls are targeted by a villainous exterminator who is bent on eradicating them, Eggs must venture aboveground to argue their cause them, where he teams with Winnie (Elle Fanning), an adventurous young girl, to save not only the Boxtrolls but also the soul of Cheesebridge.
With Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Ben Kingsley, Nick Frost, Jared Harris, Richard Ayoade and Tracy Morgan among the voice talent here,** The Boxtrolls** certainly looks promising, with plenty of Laika’s trademark stop-motion/CG blend. It’s nice to see a full trailer that more plainly lays out the story, while offering plenty of new footage of the titular characters in action. It’ll be out on September 12, 2014.