Mister Link

I think this movie is a mixed bag.

The animation is well made.

The big names are there.

On paper the story is funny.

.....but

For me the characters never become likeable, at all.

'Mister Link' himself has his moments, sure, but Hugh's en Zoe's characters feel unpleasant, cold and shallow.

I don't know what causes this for me, but my best bet is a combination of the way they look (their faces just look unpleasant, emotionless) and the bad dialogue (no character depth, no charm).

Even when these characters show their so called soft side it doesn't feel right somehow.

To be honest, I thought Hugh was portraying a bad guy the first part of the movie.

Not bad, but not great.

.....but that's of course my personal opinion ;-)

This is a small film that not many audiences were aware of. I became aware of this via Hugh Jackman's Instagram. Other than that, I had never heard of it. Then suddenly it was out in cinemas. The reason I went and saw it was because it was the only film in the cinema, at that time, I hadn't seen. My wallet has become aware of this. I'm glad that I went and saw this because it has been one of the better films of the year so far. POSITIVES! All the actors involved with the project do a terrific job. Jackman is fantastic, Saldana is just as awesome as ever, and Galifianakis was a perfect choice to voice the lovable sasquatch. There is a tonne of great humour for both children and adult audiences to understand and applaud. Chris Butler does an incredible job directing this stop motion animation. Getting these well-received lively performances but also great animated work. The film is edited together to create a classic adventure film and it keeps you very well involved. The animation itself was fantastic. It was an awesome throwback to the classic animated films with its tone and ambiance. The character design was amusing but not off-putting. But there is also awesome artwork in the background. There is some good sound design that's not just a repeated soundboard. An entertaining score from Carter Burwell and some amusing original music. MIXED! The plot and writing are familiar and that makes it predictable. Where the story goes and the character arcs are foreseeable but the fact that they are entertaining and have a lot of charm, it's easy to overlook those aspects! CONCLUSION! So, Missing Link is vastly enjoyable, and I'll recommend it to anyone that enjoys an entertaining animated movie but also to any fans of stop motion. All the cast are great in those roles, especially Galifianakis as the endearing "title character". There is some great humour in the script for all audiences to enjoy but also some hilarious physical humour. My favourite sequence is on the boat when our characters are on the run from one of the antagonists and the boat is on the harsh seas. If you were a fan of Kubo and the Two Strings, this is from the same studio. But this film has a touch of familiarity in its script and that makes it predictable.

An original and heterogeneous trio goes on an expedition in search of Shangri-La, during the Victorian era: 1) Sir Lionel Frost is a British adventurer who might be considered as the perfect mix of the professor Otto Lidenbrock from Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Vernes, 1864) and Indiana Jones (Steven Spielberg, 1981-2008), 2) Adelina Fortnight is a wonderful widow with character and 3) Mr. Link, a caveman as ingenuous as touching, a kind of missing link between us and our ancestors, is desperately looking for a soul mate.

The drawings are remarkably successful and the story is riddled with madcap plot twists. Given the kinship with the exquisite Kubo e la spada magica (2016) and the excellent Coraline e la porta magica (2009), I probably hoped for better. Nevertheless, this zany story of adventurers addressing such important topics as friendship, trust or recognition, is overall a success that I really appreciated. I was obviously not the only one to laugh, in the movie theater.

Missing Link is plagued by over-simplified caricatures of protagonists and even worse antagonists. The lack of depth reaches into its comedy too, with a joke repertoire that seems to restate itself over and over again. The first act introduced some interesting characters and had some funny moments, but by the end I was fairly disappointed because there was no growth from there. The impressive stop-motion animation was brilliant, and saved this film.

Missing Link is a beautifully crafted film that I never would've guessed was stop motion. The background and the details in them are breathtaking! The special effects and visuals are some of the best I've ever seen. Hugh Jackman and Zach Galifianakis were great as Sir Frost and Mr. Link. However, everything else falls flat. The story was unengaging and inconsistent, the jokes were hit or miss, and almost all of the characters feel one dimensional. The movie was so boring that me and my family were arguing about the character designs mostly the noses and I'm trying to see the flaws in the stop motion process where i saw very few. The heart of the movie is in the right place but the execution was a massive disappointment