Movie Review: Wildwood

Released: 2026

Genre: Stop Motion Fantasy

Age Rating: PG-13

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary

After her baby brother is kidnapped by crows, Prue must venture into the Impassable Forest to save him.

Along the way she will meet magical creatures and dangerous enemies and discover some shocking truths.

A heads-up: This movie IS rated PG-13. There is one full swear word but the rest of the rating is likely due to the admittedly brutal violence during a LotR style battle as well as a particular scene right at the beginning of the movie.

I loved this movie and I will try to convince everyone I talk to to go see it.

SPOILER WARNING: This review will contain spoilers! Proceed with caution!

Review

I have been looking forward to this movie for forever. I love Laika studios and all that they create; stop-motion animation is such a joy to experience.

Now, I follow Laika on social media, so I went into this knowing it was going to be a little different than their usual fair. Even so, right out the gate I was taken by surprise. I was not expecting the visceral image of a boy ripping his clockwork heart out of his chest.

Butt naked, for some reason.

Still don't know why it was necessary for him to be naked, but there you go. I mostly liked Prue, our main protagonist, from the start. She clearly loves her baby brother. She is a little mean to Curtis at the beginning and that irritated me, but it all worked out eventually.

On that note, I'm not sure their relationship was developed enough. Granted, this is based on a book and I don't know if it's based on just the first book or if the movie covers all three books in one go.

I liked all the characters in this one. Honestly, there's none that I really thought was irritating in a bad way. The... I keep wanting to call her a queen, but she's actually the governor duchess or something like that. She was sufficiently explored. She was the right kind of sympathetic villain in that you understand why she is doing these evil things, but don't agree.

Definitely don't agree.

I didn't think about it while watching, but thinking back, I'm a little disappointed that we spent so little time at Pittock Manor. On their social media they really talked up the manor and how they built it and what it was modeled after. But then in the movie, you don't really get a good look at it or a chance to really explore it.

The different factions were fun, but, again, didn't really get to go deep into any of them. The aviary especially seemed to be a blip in the overall story. Even though we got a moment where I won't mention here because it was so shocking I don't want to ruin it, even with a full-spoiler review.

Jumping to the end of the movie, that final was way more brutal than I expected. This wasn't just 'two armies clash and there's a flurry of fighting where you can't really see anything.' No, they zoomed in on individual clashes, showing stabs, slashes, death, blood, you name it. Even when the birds showed up there was a moment where one bird breaks a crow's neck that sticks in my brain because what?

The only thing that I was a little disappointed with was the final confrontation. There were things I expected to happen, that didn't.

The first major thing I thought would happen was that Prue would take control of the ivy. There was this whole thing with sacrificing a child born of magic to wake the ivy and the hints of how Prue's blood would also activate the ivy. There was even a whole thing where she communicated with the old tree. But in the end, it was just her asking the ivy for help and the ivy did all the work.

The biggest thing that bugged me, that I would change/add, is something with the son's body. It was essentially the driving force for everything. Alexandra wanted to find her son's body. There was even a bit with the ivy kind of winding around his bones which became a warning dream for Prue. With that, I expected that he would show up in some capacity, maybe the bones being puppeted by the ivy, maybe him coming back to tell his mom to let go, maybe even Prue doing it as she controlled the ivy (either as a peace offering or to throw off Alexandra or something). And there was no closure on in, either.

In the end, I loved the movie. Even with my little nitpicks and whatnot (partially the risk of being a writer), I enjoyed it a lot. To the point I want to go see it again.

Would I Recommend?

ABSOLUTELY. Go see this movie, watch it when it comes out. Experience a great story.

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