Up & Coming Weekly

October 21, 2014

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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OCTOBER 22-28, 2014 UCW 21 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM I expect Laika pictures to be dark (see Coraline, ParaNorman). I'm a fan of dark and I like children's movies that don't talk down to their audience. Having said that, Boxtrolls (96 minutes) was disturbing in a way I don't think I've seen from Laika before. I watched the film on a Sunday afternoon in a theater full of kids, and there were several points at which comforting parental murmurs were required. I liked it, but I recommend parents, especially those with younger kids, take that PG warning to heart. In the vaguely medieval town of Cheesebridge, parents are told to hide their tender and delicious babies, lest Boxtrolls come in the night to grind them into troll kibble. Local exterminator Archibald Snatcher (Sir Ben Kingsley) strikes a bargain with local bigshot Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris) to wipe out the Boxtrolls in exchange for a white hat signifying membership in the exclusive cheese guild. Membership in the guild apparently involves being locked in the cheese closet and using long pointy forks to taste a variety of cheeses, both stinky and exotic. As it turns out, however, the Boxtrolls eat bugs, not babies. They mostly keep to themselves in the underground hideaway in which they have stashed a human child named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright). I can only imagine the challenges they faced keeping that kid in formula and diapers. Over the course of 10 years, Boxtrolls Fish and Shoe raise Eggs to be the best Boxtroll he can be. Gradually, as the exterminator carries out his task, fewer and fewer Boxtrolls remain. Meanwhile, Lord Portley-Rind's daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) is frustrated at her father's lack of attention, and rebels by throwing his white hat out a window after curfew. When she goes to retrieve the hat she catches a glimpse of Eggs just before the exterminators capture Fish. Eggs vows to retrieve Fish and creates a disguise so he can pass amongst the townsfolk unnoticed. His plan goes awry when Winnie figures out he is the same boy she saw running with Boxtrolls and begins to question him regarding their bonechewing and blooddrinking habits. She is a macabre child. Eggs finally slips away from her and heads to the exterminator's factory. He finds out that Fish and the other Boxtrolls have been enslaved by Snatcher and forced to use their engineering skills to build him a steampunk something or other. Take a minute to drink that in … the presumably orphaned boy has slowly lost his foster family of Boxtrolls over the course of 10 years. Now, he finds out that they have been chained underground and forced to work for a man who plans to kill them. Not to mention the bit about how (Spoiler Alert!) his father has been tied upside down on the factory floor, slowly going insane. Anyway, eventually Eggs frees Fish, Winnie shows up, and they scamper down into the sewer to hide from Snatcher and his henchmen. Winnie and Eggs try to tell her father about the nature of his employee, but it does not end well. Eggs gets captured along with the remaining Boxtrolls and Snatcher uses his steampunk machine to inflict a horrible squishing death upon the tortured boy's only friends. But don't worry! It is a PG movie so everything works out in the end. Overall, with the emphasis on cheese and trolls with big feet slapping their box tummies I feel that the writers owe me and my family some royalties. Watching the film was like looking into a mirror! A fun mirror filled with cheese and trolls and child abandonment! Hide Your Tender Babies Boxtrolls (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Have your next meal delivered! orderup.com COSTUMES SO SEXY, IT'S SCARY! 3525 Lackey St., Lumberton • 910-739-4488 NOW 50% OFF! All Halloween Costumes and Accessories.

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