Missing Link Review

Laika's fifth feature is the most technically extravagant thing the studio has made and the least urgent. The puppets carry thousands of printed face swaps, the sets include a sinking ship and a rope bridge over a Himalayan gorge, and there are shots where a wet coat, the rain and the lamplight are all physical objects moved by hand one frame at a time.

That craft is worth the ticket by itself. Chris Butler's screenplay is a genteel Victorian adventure with a Sasquatch who is lonely and literal minded, and Zach Galifianakis plays him with a sweetness that never tips into mugging. Jackman's Sir Lionel Frost is a vain man chasing membership in a club of fools, and the film is clear eyed about how small that ambition is.

What it lacks is danger. Kubo and the Two Strings had grief in it. This has a chase, a villain played by Stephen Fry who is nothing more than a snob, and an amiable moral about choosing your own family. The jokes are mild and land at one volume for ninety minutes, and Zoe Saldana's Adelina, introduced as the only person here with a past worth asking about, is given almost nothing to do with it.