Title – Wildwood (2026)

Director – Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings)

Cast – (Voices of) Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Tantoo Cardinal, Jake Johnson, Awkwafina

Plot – When her baby brother is kidnapped by a murder of crows and taken to the mysterious woods outside of her home in Portland, teenager Prue (Lee) must traverse a mysterious and dangerous world to rescue her sibling.

“I don’t want any part of your fairytale”

Review by Eddie on 04/11/2026

A stunning technical and artistic achievement that took the better part of 16 years to complete, Laika’s latest significant stop motion venture Wildwood has taken the world by storm with glowing critical and audience reception, no doubt a comfort for director Travis Knight and his dedicated team as Wildwood looks set to become a significant financial disappointment despite the universal acclaim.

As sure as a sure thing gets when it comes to the soon to be unleashed awards season animation categories, Wildwood’s inevitable Oscar win is going to be well deserved, as the mastery behind the scenes to get Knight’s epic adaptation of Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’s books really does need to be seen to be believed, even if I personally feel like this notable display of artistry has hidden shortcomings elsewhere in Wildwood’s cinematic version.

From the bustling streets of Portland where Peyton Elizabeth Lee’s central teenage figure Prue lives with her family, including one of 2026’s most frustrating and annoying parental units, through to the fantastical and equally dark locales within the woods where much of Prue’s journey to rescue her baby brother from the clutches of Carey Mulligan’s Alexandra takes place, every inch of Wildwood is a visual delight and the attention to detail on display here is second to none, but these masterful works harbor within a fairly cookie-cutter fantastical story that lacks the engaging characters needed to invest us further into this troubled world.

Front and centre to this is the elephant in the room that is Prue that main character.

Unlike say a Frodo Baggins, a Harry Potter or even Laika’s own Coraline, Prue just isn’t that interesting of a main character to follow into this world and while her quest to return her baby brother to the natural world he belongs to is clearly one that’s justified and relatable, she never shows the character depth or development that would’ve made Wildwood’s visual journey one that leaps into the stratosphere of great.

Surrounded by a range of interesting but hugely undeveloped side characters such as Mahershala Ali’s bandit leader Brendan, Richard E. Grant’s Owl Rex or Tantoo Cardinal’s Iphigenia, there’s a niggling feeling that Wildwood’s focus on its painstaking creative process has shortchanged other areas of the storytelling realm that includes a script from scribe Chris Butler that doesn’t always hit the way you’d hope both in the emotional stakes and the comedic moments, that to be fair aren’t that prevalent in a film aimed far more at an older audience than a young cohort.

By the time the too be expected finale act battle vs good and evil arrives in Wildwood, you’ll still be wowed by what’s being undertaken and achieved on screen but unless you’ve been put under the spell of the artistry on display, like so many obviously have, you can’t help but feel like you’re watching an oddly hollow animated experience that’s never managed to find that special central heart and soul like the very best of the fantasy realm manages to do alongside its creative accomplishments.

Final Say –

There’s no denying Wildwood on an artistic level, no doubts about Travis Knight and his teams work on this front, but Wildwood is left wanting in other departments, ensuring that for any viewers not completely in awe of the moment to moment visual splendour, they will be left wondering what all the fuss is about elsewhere within this dark and foreboding fantasy tale.

3 Unipiper’s out of 5