ANI-MOVIES, *Wendell And Wild

The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick hadn't been involved in a movie since Coraline in 2009, so when comedy-turned horror filmmaker Jordan Peele got together with him to produce a movie based on his unpublished book, it seemed like a great deal. Wendell And Wild is a stop-motion animation feature that premiered on Netflix in 2022 and directed by Peele's longtime collaborator Win Rosenfield. As far as an animated feature, it's above average, not exactly as overwhelming as something you would see in a Aardman or Laika production, even though still engaging to the eye. The problem is that the story is all over the place with and endless barrage of plot points that keep getting tacked on to it at breakneck speed. The overall narrative refuses to stick to a single idea for any in depth amount of time largely stuffed totally unrelated filler. The film suffers from a nagging habit of going from one unconnected scene after the other while losing its focus with its overall message.

Kat is an orphan whose parents are killed in a car accident she blames herself for when she was younger. Years later, she's become a punk rebelling against the system proudly playing her dad's old boombox as loud as possible. She returns to her hometown of Rust Bank and is enrolled in a Catholic school for girls. The town was originally supported by a soft drink brewery run by Kat's parents that was later burned down. A corrupt company called Klaxon Korp has slowly been buying up Rust Bank to create their own specialized prison. Kat doesn't make friends with any of her new schoolmates including the only trans student Raul, although he has his own agenda painting pieces of a huge painting over all the rooftops in town. Meanwhile, the title characters of Wendell and Wild are demon brothers toiling in the underworld spending their days planting hair plugs in their gigantic demon father's skull who has an amusement park on his gut where he tortures lost souls. Wendell and Wild discover that Kat is what's called a hell maiden and has a paranormal connection to the spirit world that gives her precognition. The brothers make contact with Kat and get her to summon them upstairs so they can set up their own theme park with blackjack and hookers. In exchange, Wendell and Wild promise to restore parents back to life thanks to their magic hair cream, even though the effects are only temporary. From this point on, the plot channel surfs between conflicting ideas and concepts, most of which never get resolved in the end. There's a nun at the school who is also a hell maiden, a disabled janitor that catches demons with her, and the evil school head who gets killed by the Klaxons but is resurrected by the demon brothers all working on a scheme to help the Klaxon Korp take over the town, even though they killed him! Some of the characters are well-meaning and honestly decent, but most are selfish and don't care who they use to get what they want even with good intentions. It's very hard to accept how abrupt the movie ends with its eternal barrage of expositions trying to explain the character's motives and backstories.

Wendell And Wild tries to shove too many social commentaries into a single feature. There's trans-representation, anti-industry, corporate greed, crooked religious authorities, and considering that the main crux of the film is about demonic mojo you would expect a little more under the topics of sins and succumbing to selfishness. One of the only saving graces is the adorable pygmy goat that acts as the film's token cute animal character that you could see someone making plushies of. This movie is a stunning viewing experience that could have neen quaint to see on the big screen even though its being limited to Netflix. Henry Selick might have had a good enough story in his original book, but Jordan Peele's input might have added more to the overall production than it was capable of handling, even in an animated movie. Peele is good at modern day thrillers, although Wendell And Wild can barely keep its head above water with all the political criticism which denies the audience a satisfying watch.