Film Review - Wildwood (2026)

Wildwood is the new film by Laika Animation and concerns Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who witnesses her baby brother being kidnapped by a flock of crows and chases them into a deep dark forest on the outskirts of the city she and her family lives in and so her and her friend Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) must venture into it to save him.

Wildwood is another well made animated film by Laika and that starts with their stop motion animation work which is simply superb here, more than once part of me thought I was looking at live action photography as it looked so smooth and moved like live action actors would that it gave me that feeling and the final battle in this movie is a triumph to observe especially on a cinema screen as it felt big, had genuine stakes in it and was well worth the time and effort to animate it,

The voice cast is also good here as well, Lee and Tremblay are good in their roles as the main kids of the story but they are also backed up by Carey Mulligan as the main villain (and she is excellent in the role), Mahershala Ali as a local bandit leader who becomes a key ally to our heroes, Awkafina as a rat who reminded me a couple of times of Abu the monkey from Aladdin, Richard E Grant/Angela Bassett and Jemaine Clement are also good and their voice work is that good I had no idea it was any of them in those roles until I saw their names in the credits,

The storytelling on the other hand reminded me a little bit of George Lucas and Ron Howard’s Willow at times plus the film is a little long but when the animation and voice work are this good I didn’t care all that much and I hope this movie wins Best Animated Feature at the Oscars next year as it’s the best animated movie I’ve seen this year,

And so that was Wildwood and it’s a highlight of the year movie wise for me, 4 out of 5.