Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zach Galifianakis, Zoe Saldana, Timothy Olyphant, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas, Armrita Acharia, David Walliams.
It quite often take what is considered a younger person’s film to bring a sense of truth to the adult mind, a connection, a bond to what we understand in our dotage to the tremendous appeal of discovery we yearned for when our imaginations were first forming and the world was a playground waiting to be discovered.
It takes animation to bring to life a sense of the surreal in which mainstream cinema cannot hope to attain, one in which films such as Toy Story, Wall-E or Inside Out is rightly credited as bringing a new creativity and psychological understanding to a world that has lost its way when it comes to bridging the gap between childhood and a way that an adult is blinkered by their surroundings and inbuilt prejudices.
The combination of Laika and Annapurna Pictures in creating Missing Link must be congratulated, arguably not as strong as Pixar in the consciousness of the film goer as a brand when it comes to animation, they instead capture a growling intense humour to which Pixar steers away from, relying instead on the relationships formed between the characters. It is a combination that is enhanced by the vocal performances of Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, Zach Galifianakis and Zoe Saldana and how a sense of exploration comes across, willing to delve into a world that will bridge the aforementioned gap between childhood and adulthood without pandering to the possibilities of commercialism and merchandise.
The surreal nature in which animation captures the imagination, in which it highlights loss, of pain, of hope, is of greater significance than arguably a film steeped in the real life and black and white, and it one that is beautifully framed as the relationship between man and the Missing Link is established. It is also telling that the focus in part is on how even those we are closely related to will turn their backs upon you as they perceive you to be different; animation being able to show the ridiculous and damaging nature of such thought in a more damning light than that of mainstream cinema.
Missing Link is a film which sets out to enhance the scope of the animated genre and succeeds with great craft and a story which is engaging and thoughtful; a pleasure to which the young mind should reach out and insist that the adults around them take note of.
Ian D. Hall