The titular Wendell and Wild are scheming demon brothers who enlist a rebellious 13-year-old girl, Kat , to summon them to the Land of the Living. Kat has her own designs — to bring her dead parents back from the grave.
Beneath the plot machinations, it is a tale we've heard before, but that doesn't make it any less refreshing to watch in this phantasmagorical stop-motion extravaganza. From its sound design to its voice actors,is a visually cohesive and entertaining watch, imbued with an authentic artistic soul that can sometimes be lacking in overly stylised films.One of the most moving visual elements is Kat's punk aesthetic.
Her music choice is an extension of her angst — as it was in all of us as 13-year-olds — and it's almost impossible not to fall in love with her because she is so relatable. And, as the backbone of the movie, she needs to be.isn't a kids' film necessarily it's hard to imagine younger viewers following the plots in a meaningful way.
It's a lot stuffed into an hour and 45 minutes of viewing time, and while everything does, more or less, coalesce at the end, you can't help but wonder if the film would have had more emotional impact if it focused on some of the more resonant themes. A storyline about a trans student isn't quite given its weight, instead reduced to a few contrived lines of dialogue and an instance of deadnaming.
It's hard to argue, however, which storyline should have been dropped in order to let the others breathe and though a longer run-time isn't something we often champion, it might have benefited. Still, the film's magic comes not from the beat-by-beat minutiae of its plot but the visual tapestry and expert voice acting that keep you hooked regardless of the proliferation of plots.