Wendell and Wild is what you get when you mix the darkly whimsical genius of The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick with the humour of Key and Peele. The stop-motion animated Netflix film has charm and spooks in equal measure.
The titular Wendell and Wild are scheming demon brothers who enlist a rebellious 13-year-old girl, Kat (Lyric Ross), to summon them to the Land of the Living. Kat has her own designs — to bring her dead parents back from the grave.
Beneath the plot machinations, it is a tale we've heard before, but that doesn't make it any less refreshing to watch in this phantasmagorical stop-motion extravaganza. From its sound design to its voice actors, Wendell and Wild is a visually cohesive and entertaining watch, imbued with an authentic artistic soul that can sometimes be lacking in overly stylised films.
One of the most moving visual elements is Kat's punk aesthetic. Her ripped plaid skirt and platform boots, green hair and eyebrow rings are never questioned, berated nor belittled.
Her music choice is an extension of her angst — as it was in all of us as 13-year-olds — and it's almost impossible not to fall in love with her because she is so relatable. And, as the backbone of the movie, she needs to be.
The film itself, however, is a bit overstuffed; while Wendell and Wild isn't a kids' film necessarily (we'll say it again: animation is a medium, not a genre!) it's hard to imagine younger viewers following the plots in a meaningful way.
Wendell and Wild go up against ruling demon Buffalo Belzer (Ving Rhames), a pair of nefarious private prison investors are trying to destroy the town, a priest is trying to save his school for wayward girls from being closed, a mother on the verge of losing her home and job is trying to prove the town's brewery fire was arson, and sister Helley (Angela Bassett) has demons of her own to deal with, amongst other subplots.
It's a lot stuffed into an hour and 45 minutes of viewing time, and while everything does, more or less, coalesce at the end, you can't help but wonder if the film would have had more emotional impact if it focused on some of the more resonant themes. A storyline about a trans student (Raul, voiced by Sam Zelaya) isn't quite given its weight, instead reduced to a few contrived lines of dialogue and an instance of deadnaming.
While it's wonderful to see the story of a trans student being included in a major film, it's hard not to feel like the subplot is shortchanged with so much going on at once. Likewise, the breakdown of what's wrong with private prisons is wedged in with great speed and while it's an accurately concise explanation, it too feels like another cherry on an already overflowing sundae.
It's hard to argue, however, which storyline should have been dropped in order to let the others breathe and though a longer run-time isn't something we often champion, it might have benefited Wendell and Wild. Still, the film's magic comes not from the beat-by-beat minutiae of its plot but the visual tapestry and expert voice acting that keep you hooked regardless of the proliferation of plots.
Wendell and Wild is out now on Netflix
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