(4 / 5)

Laika likes to be grand, go ambitious and portray the unconventional. They latch onto stories about characters that don’t quite fit in and meet other such outsides and plots that take them to unique places. They also are not content with doing what they know they can do, each time they want to be challenged with their craft and artistry in some way. So here is their next feature, Missing Link, a story about an odd pairing if ever there was one and all the other trails and characters they meet along to way for them to reach their goal.

From the opening, we get a firm understanding of who the main character is and what kind of adventure we are in for. We open on a footprint of a large creature, then it wipes to a skinny boot print then the camera glides above the water of a lake to a little boat, it rises up to a fancy tea set being poured and then up to the man having it, he complains that it’s gotten a bit cold. His assistant apologizes but sets things up for capturing evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. The creature does appear, with the encouragement of bagpipes, and proceeds to eat the assistant and dive down, but through some bold adventuring by the gentleman, he saves his assistant, however, the camera which would have captured proof of the monster gets smashed.

This gentleman is Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman), an explorer of the strange, unique and often dangerous. Which leads to his latest assistant quitting. While browsing through his pile of mail he finds one crudely written letter saying that if they follow their directions then he will find proof of the legendary Sasquatch.

He goes to the Gentlemen Explorers Club that is filled with stuffy, pompous, thickly mustached, or bearded or sideburned old men in black and white suits that gather around a fireplace and a reminisce about how they shot an animal or killed some foreign people. They have no interest in granting Frist membership because he is unconventional and he always failed to bring back proof of his oddities. So a wager is made, if he can bring back proof this time then he will be granted membership,

Within this scene, you can see Laikas talent for not just animation but comedy. This scene serves as pure exposition, needed to spell out his motivation and what will be the goals going forward. These scenes are usually the dullest and slowest parts of any movie unless they are done right. While these men are standing around talking they really on unique character movement, visuals and fun inserts of comedy that keep us looking and listening. This is something essential yet you’d be surprised at how many movies have these scenes and put nothing unique or even fun in it to keep you interested.

When he arrives at the specified location and does indeed find the Sasquatch (Zach Galifianakis), however, he is most surprised to find out that he is able to speak, English! Rather well and also that he was the one who wrote him the letter. The Sasquatch is all alone in the forest, which is being diminished by trees being cut down, and believes that he has relatives in the snowy mountains, the yetis! Frost agrees to help him reach his relatives if he gives him proof of his existence so he can join the Gentelmens Explorers Club. However the sasquatch needs a name, Frost suggests Mr. Link which is also humorous because it’s like missing link, the sasquatch doesn’t get it.

Mr. Link has very little experience with people or interactions of any kind. He takes things at face value and is very literal so he needs tuirns of frazes explained to him and if asked to do something he literally does it. Take one scene when he is passes a rope and a grappling hook and asked to “Throw this over the wall” he does, all of it in one go. This is the main type of jokes we get from him and you eventually get wise to it and they become the weakenst part of the movie. 

While traveling they realize they’ll need a map of the Himalayas, luckily Frost knows where to find one. Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana) has it, her and Frost were a couple years ago but he was more interested in his adventures and so she married his best friend. As you would expect his just showing up after not being in contact after years and only doing so to get a map that her late husband died for does not go over well. But they desperately need it so they come back in the night to steal it, she isn’t happy of course but she also realizes she hasn’t been living her life, so this duo becomes a trio.

It seems like they went for sheer impressive spectacle with Kubo of the Two Strings and here they want to try out some more subtle things. Not to say that this movie is devoiud of a grand ambition or has scope, far from it, but they want to get smaller details down. Take one scene that takes place on a boat, theres a conversation between Frost and Adelina, it’s goining through some harsh waves so it rocks, while the conversation unfolds the room itsef is swaying ever so gracefully, so the characters have to adjust their footing to balance and furniture slides around, sometimes very slowly others abrubtly. Other times when they have a camera that moves along with the character and shifts angles when they change direction. All of this must be discussed, planned, built, painted and then finally animated, one frame at a time. Or other times when Mr. Link is standing with the wind hitting him and every chunk of his fur blows in the wind.

Laika operates as Disney did in the old days. Art challenges the technology, technology informs the art. They constantly embrace and seek out the odd and fascinating. Like Mr. Link himself there is nothing else like this movie, flaws yes, but why be safe if you can be bold and beautiful.