Based on the book Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow, The Boxtrolls is a movie with lots of fun, lots of heart, and very few words. Jesus and I meant to watch it in theater or at the very least as soon as it came out on DVD, but instead we found it on Netflix last night. We enjoyed the simple story and we loved the stop-motion animation. (This after credit scene was actually our favorite.)
The titular characters, the trash-collecting, gadget-hoarding, thingamabob-loving trolls themselves, reminded us of Despicable Me's Minions: they gesture more than they speak, and they rely on haphazard teamwork to collect their coveted trash-treasures and retreat to their underground space without being seen by the humans of Cheesebridge. These humans are convinced that Boxtrolls are evil, and there is in fact a team of men whose only job is to apprehend the "thieving monsters."
Eggs, one of the Boxtrolls, is actually a human boy, who has been raised by Fish (they're named after the items their box clothes used to hold) since he was a baby. When the only family he knows starts disappearing (victims of Snatcher, the Boxtroll exterminator), Eggs sets out to find and rescue them. He enlists the help of Winnie, the strong-willed daughter of the mayor.
Dark (sometimes gross) humor carries The Boxtrolls along, filling in for a stripped down script and minimal action. The happy ending happens only after several close calls, the best cheese joke I've heard in a while (Cheesebridge has a Curds Way and a Milk Street. How does one get to Curds Way? "Milk turns into it."), and the realization that "Cheese, Hats, Boxes. They don't make you. You make you."
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