In spite of a warm reception, third time’s not the charm for indie Irish animator Tomm Moore after SECRET OF THE KELLS and SONG OF THE SEA raised expectations with their 2D handcrafted folkloric charm.* The detailed backgrounds, Celtic runes and painterly look remain, along with striking set pieces and new inside-the-panel/split-screen visuals, effectively borrowed from action comic books. But the film sinks on a messy, repetitive storyline and misconceived/unappealing character development & design. Our eponymous wolfwalker (call her Mebh Óg MacTíre) comes embedded with a pack of wolves terrifying Kilkerry Ireland in 1650. And it’s young Robyn Goodfellowe, at first eager to help her father hunt them out of existence, who has a change of heart upon meeting Mebh in her human form. Soon Robyn’s trying to change hearts & minds in the village and to stop her father before the killing starts. Moore and his writers develop a sort of Peter Pan/Wendy dynamic between young girl and young wolfwalker as they bond in forest gambols. (Definite Sapphic notes flooding the air.) And there’s also a Captain Hook figure in the Lord Protector, certain he can tame the whole pack after trapping Mebh’s wolf mother. None of this particularly well thought out, the wolf figures and their human counterparts somehow existing in form at the same time, while the girlfriends are equally whiny & teenage-headstrong annoying. Worse, the wolfwalker art design looks neither human or wolf. More of a lion cub. Meantime, poor Sean Bean, the one ‘name’ in the vocal cast, plays the girl’s hunter/father as if he were dubbing Liam Neeson, hushfully growling every line.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: While this is worth a look on graphics alone, Moore is far better represented by his second film, SONG OF THE SEA/’14. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/06/song-of-sea-2014.html
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