Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

(2014)

Fun fact about Professor Popinjay (me): I experience the “uncanny valley” feelings when it comes to humanoid clay-mation. It’s when human looking clay stuff starts morphing that I get queasy, or when their mannerisms are a bit too natural looking. Freaks me out. Even those old Chips Ahoy and Puffs tissue commercials are weird to me.

The characters in Boxtrolls are grotesque. Even the humans. Thankfully this wasn’t the type of a stop motion that disturbs me. I don’t know if Boxtrolls is clay or not. Everything seems-pretty static, which I appreciate. It seems like they (gnomes) wanted the human’s abhorrent regard for the trolls to seem ironic considering both parties are equally hideous.

There was a dynamic to this I thought was profound. We had a definite villain in the red-hatted Archibald Snatcher. However, the well-to-do white-hatted Lord Charles Portly-Rind (at the top of the cast system) although a seemingly good-natured and well-meaning city official, is ignorant of a very obvious conspiracy about him despite his daughter constantly trying to bring it to his attention. In this way the Lord is a bit of a villain himself, enabling Archibald Snatcher to do his worst. This adds a refreshing complexity to what might have otherwise been a fairly straightforward story. This wasn’t just about Archibald’s lust for power and cheese. It was also about Lord Charles’ arrogance and neglect of his daughter.

Then there was the character Eggs (the trolls were named after the labels on the boxes they wore) and the Boxtrolls themselves, all of whom had a lesson to learn. Lessons for everyone! And imparted in an entertaining fashion. Lovely.

Richard Ayoade lends his voice to one of Archibald’s henchmen. He periodically announces the percentage of his certainty that he is infact one of the good guys. Of course this percentage dwindles steadily over the course of the film inversely with his disillusionment. Hilarious! I’m glad not all characters do this all the time. That would certainly take a lot of the fun out of following a story. But one guy doing it just this once makes it pretty funny. I love Richard Ayoade. So does my wife. Kind of boils my cabbage a bit, actually.

The climax is pretty thrilling what with the steampunk and the robot and the BOOM CRASH BANG! I don’t want to spoil it for you. I really liked this.

The cover of Malvina Reynolds’ Little Boxes in the end credits takes on an interesting context when paired with this movie.

Give this a chance or at least go watch Travel Man and/or Invention Man. Both thoroughly entertaining. Both thoroughly featuring Richard Ayoade.