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The Return of the King
For nearly two decades, LAIKA has been championing stop-motion animation as a powerful storytelling medium. But for sixteen years, one ambitious project has ruled them all. Wildwood. The cinematic wizards of the Pacific Northwest have long dreamed of making an epic fantasy as big as The Hobbit or Game of Thrones. After four feature-length films and countless innovations, the studio aims to make that dream a reality.
Is Wildwood LAIKA’s magnum opus?
A Young Adult Dark Fantasy Done Right
You’ve seen YA fantasy like it, but never with this much flair. I’d describe the story as something akin to The Chronicles of Narnia’s whimsy by way of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, set in the Pacific Northwest.
The film follows Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and her classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) as they are swept into a hidden magical forest just outside Portland, Oregon, to rescue Prue’s kidnapped baby brother. They quickly discover there’s more to the woods than meets the eye. They encounter talking animals, an ineffectual government, and Alexandra’s (Carey Mulligan) sinister plot to start a war fueled by grief and vengeance.
Like the best YA novels, Wildwood reframes a paint-by-numbers fairy tale. It heightens the familiar with a twist on the core mystery, a slightly edgier take on violence, and a more emotionally complex undercurrent to the characters’ discovery. Prue isn’t just rescuing her brother; she’s taking on her parents’ shortcomings by navigating the politics of an unjust world.
The result is a whimsical story that’s dark, sentimental, and immersive. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it pairs the beloved LAIKA aesthetic with sincere characters and performances, making it escapist cinema at its finest.
Tired Tropes Temper the Spectacle
The flipside to seeing a story that feels like others we’ve seen before is that the film leans on a few tired character tropes. Wildwood isn’t just wearing its inspirations on its sleeve. It’s frequently playing the hits, and not always in a particularly novel way.
A few examples:
- The film’s antagonist, Alexandra, is a vengeful mother whose only identity is the vengeance she carries and her longing to see her dead child.
- Prue’s parents are clueless and five steps behind their much sharper teenage daughter. Sweet and well-meaning? Yes. Completely incapable of helping their daughter with the simplest of heroic tasks? Yes. This is YA novel 101 material.
- Curtis is a socially awkward boy who must overcome his cowardice and find his own voice. It’s predictable.
There are more. Did I mention the coyotes are the bad guys?
To Wildwood‘s credit, even when it leans on well-worn fantasy territory, it finds new ways to reframe the archetypes and move Prue’s story forward. The parents may be useless, but that actually becomes a key part of the mythology. Prue’s journey ends with a poignant, emotionally affecting story about growing up, better understanding the tradeoffs parents have to make and learning when to let go. The tropes aren’t useless, but they are less groundbreaking than most every other aspect of the film.
LAIKA Artists Do What AI Can’t
LAIKA’s stop-motion animation doesn’t just set a standard for craftsmanship; it pushes the boundaries of what handmade filmmaking can achieve in 2026.
Studio co-founder and director Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings, Masters of the Universe) and the team have outdone themselves yet again. Their commitment to using the craft to tell unique genre stories feels like magic.
Wildwood is a lush feast for the senses, with at least a dozen moments that will leave you in awe. Every detail, from the feathers on The General’s wings to the wrinkles on Alexandra’s face to the vivacious autumn leaves sprinkled throughout Wildwood’s sprawling forests, is handcrafted by artists and animators. The results are visually immaculate.
When you consider the Lord of the Rings-sized battles in the climax, you’ll be stunned and ask yourself, “How the heck did they pull this off?”
As the drum for generative AI beats louder and louder among Hollywood executives and investors, Wildwood’s commitment to human artistry stands as one of the most provocative and compelling examples of cinematic achievement in 2026. It can only happen when hundreds of people put in the painstaking work to create visual art that embodies the beauty of human expression. Sweat equity, collaboration, and human imagination make the impossible a cinematic reality.
Wildwood may not be LAIKA’s strongest story (that distinction belongs to Kubo), but its technical artistry is so extraordinary it feels like the film they built the studio to make. Don’t sleep on it or wait for it to hit a streaming service. See this film on the biggest screen you can find as soon as possible.
Letter Grade: A-
NOTE TO PARENTS: This film is definitely geared toward pre-teens and young adults. It’s PG-13, meaning you may want to leave the littlest ones at home.
We’ll be back next week with more Wildwood coverage and an in-depth, spoiler-filled discussion in The Cinematic Schematic. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
About Wildwood
IMDB describes Wildwood as:
The adventures of Prue McKeel as she sets off to the forests outside Portland to find her kidnapped brother.
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