Since its debut with Coraline in 2009, Laika has continuously pushed the art of handmade stop-motion animation. Its animated worlds have continuously evolved to look more elaborate, its animation techniques have become more innovative, and its stop-motion puppets navigate these magical worlds with an even smoother and deceptively lifelike motion. Those years of handcrafted care and attention to detail have paid off in Travis Knight’s ambitious adaptation of Wildwood, a modern-day fairy tale set in Laika’s own hometown of Portland, Oregon.
Based on Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’ book, Wildwood follows Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), an independent seventh grader who’s charged with taking care of her infant brother Mac at home. Disobeying her parents (Jake Johnson and Maya Erskine), she decides to take Mac to a playground instead, where a murder of crows swoop in and whisk the boy away into the Impassable Wilderness on the other side of the bridge. Prue and a nervous classmate, Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), follow behind them until they run into a pack of talking coyotes wearing soldier uniforms. The kids have stumbled into a parallel magical universe, and must learn to be the heroes in their own story if they want to fight back against the forces of dark magic and rescue Mac from the woods’ villainous, grief-stricken villainous ruler Alexandra (Carey Mulligan).
Mixing elements from stories like Labyrinth and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Wildwood spins an adventurous yarn with many pleasant surprises, and even a few shocking ones. Knight brings scenes from Meloy’s book to a dazzlingly large scale through detailed miniatures. With cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, the team immerses the characters in ominously dark woods under the cover of night but also in the warm glow of light filtering in between the trees or in the air where the Avian Principality takes to the skies. Even leaves are given texture and shading that changes when certain characters interact with them, while long shots are composed like detailed paintings with an eye-popping array of color. It’s all so carefully designed that even interstitial scenes add to the story’s emotional journey by emphasizing the outsized realm that the children find themselves in, so that they feel even more lost the deeper they venture into the woods.
Wildwood begins as a love letter for its city, and at the end of the credits, finishes with the note that the film was handcrafted in Portland. That hometown pride can be felt even in the woods, where Prue must rely on her cycling and mountain-climbing skills to rescue her little brother—her initial bike ride through town shows quick shots of Powell’s Books and Voodoo Donuts, zipping around the local trolley cars, buskers, and crafts fairs that seem like a permanent fixture near the river. Although Prue insists she’s outgrown the woo-woo side of the city (and rolls her eyes at her parents’ crunchy granola ways), it also helps her understand the parallel magical world that’s tied to nature, where mystics consult trees and owls keep the lore behind the conflict roiling the land. Chris Butler’s script makes some changes to the book’s story, but keeps the unmistakable love for such a unique place and the many characters that populate the realm.
As the film’s youthful protagonists, Lee and Tremblay are pitch-perfect as the determined Prue and the “learning to be brave” Curtis. They’re surrounded by familiar voices who add to the film’s humor or its sense of danger, like Mulligan’s soothing but deceptive turn as Alexandra, manipulating others to get what she wants, or Tom Waits’ growly vocals as the angriest coyote pack leader under her control. The kids find help along the way from Brandon, the Bandit King (Mahershala Ali); fellow bandits fighting the good fight, like Niamh (Amandla Stenberg); a rat named Septima (Awkwafina, doing her standard Awkwafina delivery); a grand golden eagle known as the General (Angela Bassett); the knowledgeable storyteller Owl Rex (Richard E. Grant); and some mystics led by Iphigenia (Tantoo Cardinal). Together, this ensemble keeps the epic story filled with twists and turns, even culminating in a Lord Of The Rings-sized battle between the indigenous denizens who live in peace with the woods and the forces of Alexandra, who seeks to control the woods for her own gains.
The timeless fantasy of Wildwood still touches on the issues of our times, like conservation and displacement. There are even a few jokes about bureaucracy and useless government figures that might give grown-ups a bit of a chuckle. While films like Zootopia have covered some of this ground already, Wildwood makes these larger themes its own at a much higher artistic level. Some of the animation is so smooth and the images so enchanting, the viewer almost has to remember how many hours of painstaking craftsmanship it takes to fill a forest clearing with ivy, ferns, and leaves, or how precise each close-up of Prue’s hand holding Mac’s must be to achieve the illusion. To appreciate the work to its fullest is to take in the scope of the project from its big-picture shots to its smallest details: Noticing the numerous sets that are vastly different from one another, so that the South Woods look nothing like the agrarian North Woods; appreciating all the character designs that gives birds texture on their wings so that each feather ruffles in incredulity; and catching how the character’s clothes move as Prue and Curtis run from the coyotes.
Watching Wildwood feels like falling headfirst into a picture book, one with a story that’s surprisingly dark and honest about the world and its dangers. As some other big animation studios are settling for reheated leftovers of their hits, it’s all the more impressive and admirable that Laika never quite repeats itself, but just keeps pushing its artistic goals and its medium forward.
Director: Travis Knight
Writer: Chris Butler
Starring: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Jake Johnson, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant, Blythe Danner
Release Date: October 23, 2026
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