The thing about animation houses like Pixar and LAIKA is they nurture talent and that exponentially enriches the stories they tell over time. Proof of that arrives with the sugary sweet and haughtily humorous Missing Link.
Writer-director Chris Butler has gifted the world the story of a Sasquatch, aka Susan (Zach Galifianakis) who awash in loneliness. This is the 1800s and he reaches out to an explorer/scientist of the most fantastical variety—Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman). Susan wants to be found by Sir Frost and brought to the other end of the world where he believes the Yeti live, aka his cousins. He is the last of his kind. Sir Frost is always searching for professional validation, when he gets so little, and with this discovery he firmly thinks that the scientific and exploration community would finally embrace him with both arms, awash in cerebral awe of his exploits.
Sir Frost, along with a colleague Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), head out to the Pacific Northwest of America to find this elusive creature. If found, the idea of evolution will be one step closer to being confirmed … something the higher educational community is a little on the weary side. After all, these are spiritual men first, and men of science second. Any kind of progress that challenges their moral beliefs is shunned. That will play into our adventure at the most inopportune times.
Missing Link is utterly charming, wildly original and sprinkled with some outlandishly out-there humor that works wickedly for those of us what a certain sense of humor. It’s like high brow slapstick meets verbal play on words with a dash of societal commentary that would likely have been found on a The Daily Show if it was doing its thing back in the 1800s! Butler’s film is whip-smart and doesn’t hold your hand through any of its richer elements—yet miraculously is still pitch-perfect for younger viewers. Like Pixar, LAIKA also is equally adept at entertaining all ages in a manner that befits us all. It is the rare film experience in 2019 that can do that. There are so many niche cinematic elements currently that it is truly a beautiful thing when a movie arrives that can be shared across age, culture, gender and even race. After all, the film is about finding the Missing Link between those who came before and the human race.
The cast is sublime. At the top are two actors who play off of each other with such repartee that one can look back at the experience of the film and marvel these two could not have been cut from more different cloths. The idea of someone like Jackman, an Australian who has made his name equally as an action hero (the various X-Men films, his Wolverine spin-offs and of course who could forget his titular turn in Van Helsing), a musical marvel (The Greatest Showman, Les Misérables), straight dramas (Australia, The Front Runner) and of course thrillers (Prisoners, The Prestige) and American Galifianakis—one who took mostly the comedy route (The Hangover, Due Date, The Campaign) and a few drama efforts (such as It’s Kind of a Funny Story)—would have such combustible comedic and endearing chemistry is frankly surprising. There are “Odd Couples,” and there is “Wolverine” and “Alan.”
From the moment these two characters meet, magic sparkles off the screen. I could have spent four hours with this pair, instead of merely 95 minutes that Missing Link comprises. Considering most voice work in animated films are done solo, their collective charm speaks volumes to their talent, and the directorial sensibilities of Butler.
The supporting cast also shines. Saldana’s character is a woman who is a century (or more!) ahead of her time. Her strength in soul and intelligence is intimidating to many who cross her path. The nay-sayers do not even enter her periphery. She simply ignores them and charges full speed ahead with her firm belief that what she is doing is on the right side of science and history. Saldana embraces this rich role wholeheartedly and completely loses herself in the role. So often in voice acting, the audience knows that a certain actor or actress is simply being a version of themselves—which to be fair, sometimes the part calls for it. It’s just that watching, and hearing, Saldana do her thing was such a gift. Never for one minute did the thought permeate my brain that there is an actress behind the person.
Also, a joy is Emma Thompson, who has the smallest of parts but leaves a seismic mark on the film with her mesmerizing turn as a Himalayan leader, simply called The Elder. Timothy Olyphant, who I just think the world of, also loses himself in the part of Willard Stenk, a Wild West gunslinger for hire who finds himself hot on the heels of our dynamic duo with one mission on his mind—to kill the beast (and the professor if he gets in the way). Topping them all and stealing scenes every moment his character is present is someone who should not surprise—given this thespian’s powerful gifts. Stephen Fry is Lord Piggot-Dunceby and he represents everything that stands in the way of Sir Frost and true advancement of the intellectual world.
Butler came up in the LAIKA ranks from the absolute beginning of the Pacific Northwest-based animation house. He served in the art department for the studio’s first film, Coraline (2009). Butler wrote (and directed) the divinely devilish ParaNorman (2012) and served as “miscellaneous crew” and screenwriter for the masterful Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). As such, he has been primed for this breakout work in Missing Link for over a decade. Nobody nurtures talent in the movie business like they do at LAIKA and Pixar. The latter follows the same model and clearly as the results show—the beneficiary of this devotion to talent building is the audience.
What Butler achieves with Missing Link is a true testament to talent rising. The world can always use someone who triumphs at tale telling and does so in such a humanistic and endearing way that allows us to shut out the craziness of our world for 90 minutes or more and bask in the glow of another world that not only entertains us, but also enlightens and enriches us. Sometimes in Hollywood, that old saying is not always true—talent rises. Career trajectory has more to do with who you know and pure politics. LAIKA may have politics like any other workplace, I have no idea. But it is undeniably one revolutionarily rich environment for cultivating creativity. The proof is in the quality of each effort that hits the screen. It’s a body of work that has fostered audience love for LAIKA that has grown exponentially.
Grade: A