Wildwood Review: Travis Knight's Animated Folklore Epic

Prue McKeel's world splits in two the afternoon her baby brother is snatched from a park by a murder of crows and carried into the tangled expanse just beyond the city limits. She follows, dragging along her classmate Curtis Mehlberg, a boy whose know-it-all skepticism lasts roughly as long as it takes for the trees to close behind them. What waits inside is a fully realized society: warring factions, talking animals, a grudging military order under a figure known only as the General, and a mysterious woman named Alexandra, who commands the crows and seems to want the child for reasons the film parcels out with admirable patience.

The quest structure is familiar, but the screenplay resists the urge to sprint from set piece to set piece. Prue and Curtis are separated early, and that decision pays off - each thread develops its own texture, its own allies and betrayals, before converging for a climax that carries genuine weight.

Let's start with the obvious: this is a stunning piece of animation. Knight, who cut his teeth on stop-motion before scaling up to Kubo and the Two Strings, brings that tactile sensibility to computer-generated imagery. The forest feels damp and lived-in. Bark has grain, moss has weight, and light filters through the canopy in a way that makes the wilderness feel less like a backdrop and more like a character with opinions about trespassers. It's a film you can practically smell.

The voice cast is deep and, more importantly, committed. Peyton Elizabeth Lee gives Prue a stubborn, unglamorous courage - she's less a chosen one than a determined older sister who refuses to accept an unacceptable outcome. Jacob Tremblay's Curtis could have been an irritant; instead he's the film's quiet engine of growth. Carey Mulligan, voicing Alexandra, is the standout. She doesn't chew scenery so much as chill it, playing the antagonist with a melancholy that makes her genuinely unnerving - you sense a history behind the crows and the cruelty, even when the film withholds it. Mahershala Ali brings gravitas to Brenden, Angela Bassett gives the General a clipped authority, and Awkwafina's Septima supplies the film's few genuine laughs without puncturing the mood.

And that mood is the film's defining gamble. Wildwood is sad in places. Not performatively sad - earnestly, thoughtfully sad. It deals in separation, loyalty, and the strange grief of discovering that the adult world is more complicated than you were promised. Some younger viewers may find the middle stretch slow going; the film takes its time establishing the forest's politics, and there are scenes where the dialogue is carrying more exposition than the images should have to support. It's also a long sit for the under-seven set.

But for families with kids old enough to hold a story in their heads, this is the rare animated film that doesn't flinch. Knight trusts the material, and the material rewards the trust. The third act delivers real catharsis because the film invested in its people rather than in its spectacle - though the spectacle, when it comes, is something to behold.

Pros

• Breathtaking, tactile animation that makes the forest feel alive and dangerous
• Carey Mulligan's Alexandra is a chilling, genuinely complex antagonist
• Strong, grounded lead performances from Lee and Tremblay
• Themes treated with maturity - no talking down to the audience
• A climax that earns its emotional payoff

Cons

• The 132-minute runtime tests younger viewers' patience
• Mid-section world-building gets dialogue-heavy
• Some supporting characters get less room than they deserve

Wildwood is that rare thing: a big-studio animated adventure with a spine, a melancholy streak, and no interest in coasting on cuteness. Knight and his team have built a forest worth getting lost in - and a story worth finding your way back out of. The 9/10 audience score isn't hype; it's recognition. Easily one of the year's best animated offerings, and a film that will linger well after the credits.