Boxtrolls, The MPAA Rating: PG Entertainment: +1 Content: +2

Family animated adventure comedy. Voices: Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Tracy Morgan, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning.

FILM SYNOPSIS: A young orphaned boy raised by underground sewer-dwelling trash collectors tries to save his friends from an evil exterminator. Based on the children's novel Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow.

PREVIEW REVIEW: The stop-motion animation is on a par with the Wallace & Gromit movies, but the film lacks charm. There’s not enough humor for kids (though it is visually busy at all times), or for adults, and quite frankly, the creepy night-dwellers are just a bit too creepy, with their rotten teeth and demonic-sounding utterances. The kids aren’t likable. The adults certainly aren’t. And the message is syndical: those who profess to be the good guys, aren’t.

The town’s magistrates pompously celebrate their positions by devouring cheese. The villain, though allergic to cheese, eats it in order to identify himself with the upper crust. This does not payoff for him.

The film is unmemorable. About the only thing it did was put me off cheese.

DVD Alternatives:

Wallace & Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Despicable Me

Preview Reviewer: Phil Boatwright
Distributor: Focus Features