By Dan Skip Allen

Laika is a stop motion animation studio owned by Phil Knight, the owner of Nike, and is run by his son Travis Knight. Knight is the producer and director of “Wildwood” a fantasy film. Their latest stop motion animated movie. It’s based on the 2011 novel from Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberist’s, and Carson Ellis. It took Knight 15 years to make the film. You could say it was a passion project for him and the studio. “Wildwood” is the 5th movie from this stop-motion animated studio. They’ve had good success in the past with a few of their movies like “Coraline, “Paranoman”,” and “Kubo and the Two Strings”. Their latest could potentially be the best that they have made and released and may net them the Academy Award that have eluded them all these years.

Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) is a teenager who lives with her parents, Patrick and Penny McKeel (Jake Johnson, Awkwafina) and her little brother Mac in Portland, Oregon. They live near a walking bridge adjacent to a secluded wooded area that’s off limits called the impassible wilderness. She is strictly forbidden from going there.  After her parents go out one day, she takes her brother for a ride around town on her bike and red wagon. Everything seemed to go fine as they went around the culturally beautiful town. They visit a few shops, but on the way back home, Mac is taken by a murder of crows. This leads to a crosstown chase that ends up in the impossible wilderness, which leads to a fantasy adventure she never imagined in her wildest dreams.

The book this film is based on is a fantasy adventure where this girl and her friend Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) go looking for her kid brother. They run afoul of a beautiful evil dowager queen Alexandra (Carey Mulligan) who has an army of coyote soldiers who do her bidding. She wants to bring back her long, deceased son, but she needs another child born of magic to do that. Mac is that boy. Prue and Curtis go into the impassable wilderness to try to rescue him, but they run into other incredible things. Like the Avian Principality, a kingdom of birds, led by Owl Rex (Richard E Grant) and The General, (Angela Bassett) a corrupt governor of the South Wood Lars Svik (Mark Evan Jackson) and his slimy assistant Roger Swindon (Jermaine Clemente) and a group of bandits led by Brenden (Mahershala Ali). They have to journey through these undiscovered lands as outsiders to rescue her brother and stop the dowager queen.

Laika has been known for creating fantastic protagonists, and Prue is another one in a series of characters they’ve created in their films. Coraline, Paranoman, and Kubo have all been great characters, but Prue might be the best one yet. She has an adventurous spirit and spunky nature to her that sets her apart from a lot of kids her age. Her ability to turn a bad situation and ingenuity are signs of a great character. The story gives her a lot of great qualities of a female protagonist. A willingness to explore and fight for what she believes in. At first, she’s overwhelmed by everything she sees and gets involved with, but eventually, she embraces the wild adventure she ends up in. This is the kind of character the world needs right now. Especially for girls looking for their own identity. 

Laika has been known for some of the best stop-motion animations in the history of the medium. Knight has combined his groundbreaking stop-motion animation with digital effects to create a vivid and beautiful world that the story takes place in. I’m just going to mention a few of the scenes in the film. The aforementioned scene involving Prue riding her bike around town with Mac in the Red Wagon was incredibly done. All the details and artistry that went into that scene were incredible. I was blown away by every little detail on the streets, buildings, and people involving animals that Knight and his team were able to create. The movements throughout the city were amazing. I couldn’t see every little detail, but I could tell this film was done with immense quality and precision from beginning to end.

Two other scenes I was blown away by were a battle sequence where the two warring factions fraught in a ravine at the bottom of a cliffside and on the outskirts of a wooded area. The two sides were filled with hundreds of characters. An army of coyotes and a bunch of bandits combined with hundreds of birds were all thrown together in this one sequence that rivaled war scenes in live-action films. The skill and experience it took to do this scene was that of a well organized group of people who had patience and artistry I’ve never seen before. This was done with a masterful touch and ability by all involved. All the separate littler scenes within the larger sequence were all done amazingly well. 

The third but not least of the amazing scenes I wanted to mention was a prison scene that involved a rat named Septima, (Awkwafina) who is doing double duty in the voice-over department, Curtis, and the bandits all locked up in cages tied to a cave ceiling. This scene had some genuine scares and wild rescues. Cages drop and are caught while ladders fall, and all the while, Curtis is trying to free the bandits from their cages. There is so much going on here. It’s hard to describe everything in detail. Knight and his team wanted to do different kinds of action scenes that looked and felt different from other adventure sequences in the film. This escape scene was a lot of fun and broke up the 

“Wildwood” is the best animated film of 2026 bar none. It doesn’t matter what kind of animation it is because it’s the best. I have a soft spot for stop-motion animation because of the skill and artistry that it takes to make these kinds of movies. Knight is obviously a lover as well. He has put a lot of years into making these kinds of films. “Wildwood” is his crowning achievement. He has adapted this book with a phenomenal female protagonist named Prue. She will be remembered for years to come in the angles of film. This is a great story about identity, loving family, and growing up. It also has a terrific fantasy based story. The world the book and film depict is amazing to behold. The detail that went into every character, tree, bird, street, building, and everything in-between was so well done. Everything almost looked real. That’s how good this movie looked. Seeing it in Dolby helped accentuate the experience for me. I’m sure everybody who watches this film will love it as much as I did because it deserves that kind of adulation. It’s the best animated film of the year. 

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars