On the plus side: It's much better than previous Saloon films. Visually it still opts for the distinct illustrative style they are known for, but the pacing and storytelling is more dynamic this time around. It's faster, punchier, more aggressive than Song of the Sea and the animation in the wolf running sequences is spell-binding. The emotional moments resonate well without feeling too mawkish and the invigorating score by Kila is a joy. There are problems though.
The plot of the hero befriending the noble savage and teaming up to defeat invading forces has certainly been visited many times before (Dances With Wolves, Ferngully, Pocahontas, Princess Mononoke, Avatar) and Wolfwalkers doesn't really do anything new with it. The heroine, Robyn, daughter of a British trap hunter tasked with wiping out wolves from a surrounding forest in Kilkenny, wants desperately to escape the shackles of domestic life. While exploring the forest, she runs into Mebh, a wild untamed wolfwalker who can magically commune with wolves, and discovers the freedom, magic and beauty therein. Robyn must try to convince her father to disobey his orders and save Mebh and the forest from destruction. From that synopsis alone, it's easy to imagine how those story arcs play out, if you've seen the other films I mentioned. At times sequences look and feel like they've been lifted directly from these sources and dropped into a different art style. Cliché messages about embracing the animal within abound.
Characters are depicted as one-dimensional stereotypes, particularly the invading Brits and the main villain, Lord Protector, a bland copy of Disney's Governor Ratcliff and Judge Frollo, who tries to tame this pagan-Celtic world one bible quote at a time. Princess Mononoke managed to be more ambiguous as to where the good and bad lies across the opposing factions, which made for a more engaging film, in my view. Wolfwalkers, however, seems to be aimed at a much younger audience and is thus played very straight. The Irish peasants are all represented as feeble-minded bog-dwellers, which I found surprising coming from an Irish studio. It seemed like they wanted to play up the Paddywhackery for laughs, but I found all the "ahh to be sure" gags more eye-roll worthy than funny, if I'm honest.
Another nitpicky issue for me was the voice acting. It was disappointingly flat and amateurish in a few places and lacked real drama. I'm not sure if all the actors were recorded together or separately, but their voices sometimes didn't sound like they were in the moment or really reacting to one another.
Gripes aside, this was an entertaining watch and easily the best animated feature to come out of Ireland in a long time.
The plot of the hero befriending the noble savage and teaming up to defeat invading forces has certainly been visited many times before (Dances With Wolves, Ferngully, Pocahontas, Princess Mononoke, Avatar) and Wolfwalkers doesn't really do anything new with it. The heroine, Robyn, daughter of a British trap hunter tasked with wiping out wolves from a surrounding forest in Kilkenny, wants desperately to escape the shackles of domestic life. While exploring the forest, she runs into Mebh, a wild untamed wolfwalker who can magically commune with wolves, and discovers the freedom, magic and beauty therein. Robyn must try to convince her father to disobey his orders and save Mebh and the forest from destruction. From that synopsis alone, it's easy to imagine how those story arcs play out, if you've seen the other films I mentioned. At times sequences look and feel like they've been lifted directly from these sources and dropped into a different art style. Cliché messages about embracing the animal within abound.
Characters are depicted as one-dimensional stereotypes, particularly the invading Brits and the main villain, Lord Protector, a bland copy of Disney's Governor Ratcliff and Judge Frollo, who tries to tame this pagan-Celtic world one bible quote at a time. Princess Mononoke managed to be more ambiguous as to where the good and bad lies across the opposing factions, which made for a more engaging film, in my view. Wolfwalkers, however, seems to be aimed at a much younger audience and is thus played very straight. The Irish peasants are all represented as feeble-minded bog-dwellers, which I found surprising coming from an Irish studio. It seemed like they wanted to play up the Paddywhackery for laughs, but I found all the "ahh to be sure" gags more eye-roll worthy than funny, if I'm honest.
Another nitpicky issue for me was the voice acting. It was disappointingly flat and amateurish in a few places and lacked real drama. I'm not sure if all the actors were recorded together or separately, but their voices sometimes didn't sound like they were in the moment or really reacting to one another.
Gripes aside, this was an entertaining watch and easily the best animated feature to come out of Ireland in a long time.