By Alice Preputnick; Photo Credits to Alice Preputnick
As 2026 ends, there are many new movies being released. “Wildwood” is now in theaters, and I went to see it this past week.
The film “Wildwood” tells the story of Prue, who travels into a magical forest hidden by ivy leaves in search of her brother, who was taken there by a murder of crows and led by a governess named Alexandra. While in the forest, Prue meets many different kinds of creatures and witnesses the turmoil of its government.
“Wildwood” was made by Laika Studios, who also made “Coraline”, “Paranormal”, and similar films. The animation for this movie is insanely impressive. It took sixteen years to make, and you can definitely tell that lots of time and care was put into its creation. Every little feature was so detailed and unique. The stop motion looked seamless. I appreciate how persistent the entire team behind “Wildwood” was to have this movie be human made and not turn to AI. However, all of this didn’t stop me from losing interest in the actual story the animation was telling.
My main problem with this movie was that it felt like a movie; while watching it, I couldn’t immerse myself in the story. At multiple points, I felt like the story was overdone and had me lost. I know this was based off a book-which I haven’t read-but there still could have been more explanation on what the ivy was and how it worked.
Something about the storytelling felt hollow to me. Certain plot points felt underdeveloped, while others felt fully explored. Prue’s parents’ backstory was explained well, but the politics of the world were not. The tension between the coyotes and the bandits could’ve been highlighted more, especially since this movie was over two hours and definitely had the time to. The character of Owl Rex, who helped Prue escape the Governor’s mansion, told her about Alexandra’s past, then was pretty much never mentioned again until he got freed from jail.
This film has some brutal scenes that I wasn’t expecting when going into it. There are multiple animals that are stabbed,shot with arrows, or bruised and bloody. “Wildwood” is Laika’s first PG-13 rated movie, and that is largely due to the battle scene that occurs at the end of the film. The physical and emotional climax of the entire story is this battle, when the coyotes and the bandits fight each other. This scene was 400 shots and was filmed over many years. Every scar and blood stain on the characters was tracked by someone on the crew, which proves how extremely detailed the production was.
Right after this scene is Prue and Alexendra’s confrontation, where Prue gets her brother back. This entire part felt so fast and rushed. This moment is what Prue’s entire plot was building up to, and it started and finished in about seven minutes. This may seem like a decent amount of time, but to put it in perspective: “Wildwood” is 2 hours and 12 minutes long. They could have used more of that time to appropriately wrap up this plot.
My main takeaway from this film is that it should have been shorter. It felt like there was so much going on, but not all of it felt important. However, so much hard work was poured into this movie; it’s a piece of real and impressive humanmade art. If you go see this movie, really just sit back and admire the animation.