{"id":1515,"date":"2019-06-25T15:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T21:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2020-05-23T23:33:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T05:33:47","slug":"movie-missing-link-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/25\/movie-missing-link-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Missing Link (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/4\/4b\/Missing_Link_2019_poster.png\/220px-Missing_Link_2019_poster.png\" alt=\"Missing Link\" width=\"220\" height=\"326\">Missing Link<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2019<br \/>\nRating: PG<br \/>\nLength: 94 minutes \/ 1.57 hours<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been about a decade since I started loosely paying attention to the works of Laika Entertainment. With so few studios committing to stop-motion animation, I\u2019m always intrigued by a movie that isn\u2019t just straight up CGI animation. For the most part, Laika\u2019s films have been entertaining, but not incredibly extraordinary. Movies like&nbsp;<em>Coraline<\/em>&nbsp;(2009) and&nbsp;<em>ParaNorman<\/em>&nbsp;(2012) were certainly high points, but my personal favorite was definitely&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/15\/movie-kubo-and-the-two-strings-2016\/\"><em>Kubo and the Two Strings<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;(2016). Initially, when I saw advertising for&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em>&nbsp;(2019), I didn\u2019t realize it was a Laika film. Once I learned that it was, I made sure to see it.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, while I would have liked another film along the lines of&nbsp;<em>Kubo<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em>&nbsp;was more like&nbsp;<em>The Boxtrolls<\/em>&nbsp;(2014) in terms of its humor and presentation. I understand these films mostly target children, but the amount of crude humor mostly turned me off. That\u2019s not to say that the technical achievements of Laika\u2019s stop motion aren\u2019t on full display here. With the advent of 3-D printing, I\u2019ve noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the animation, and&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em>&nbsp;is no exception. There were even moments where I had trouble distinguishing that it was even stop-motion at all.<\/p>\n<p>Plot-wise,&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em>&nbsp;doesn\u2019t seem too original. Sitting somewhere between&nbsp;<em>Around the World in 80 Days<\/em>&nbsp;(1956) and&nbsp;<em>E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial<\/em>&nbsp;(1982),&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em>&nbsp;excels as a travel movie and a buddy movie. A few action sequences were exceptional, the best being a chase sequence on a boat and the worst being an unbelievable sequence of events near the end. Fortunately, the pacing was fast enough to keep everything moving and completed without wasting too much time. Considering how long stop-motion animation takes, it\u2019s no wonder why no scene was wasted.<\/p>\n<p>An average story with great Laika visuals, I give&nbsp;<em>Missing Link<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\">&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\"><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Missing Link Year: 2019 Rating: PG Length: 94 minutes \/ 1.57 hours It\u2019s been about a decade since I started loosely paying attention to the works of Laika Entertainment. With so few studios committing to stop-motion animation, I\u2019m always intrigued by a movie that isn\u2019t just straight up CGI animation. For the most part, Laika\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,1199,2],"tags":[1576,254,255,1834,13,8,1835,256],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-animated","category-movie","tag-1576","tag-kubo-and-the-two-strings","tag-laika","tag-missing-link","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-sasquatch","tag-the-boxtrolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2197,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}