Mark Reviews Movies: MISSING LINK (2019)

Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 11, 2019

You know that you're in sure hands at the beginning of Missing Link. The opening sequence serves as a solid and thorough establishment of the film's setup, its main character, and, most importantly, its tone. It often seems as if animated films do this well, especially if they're aimed at kids, who—either naïvely or wisely—cannot stand a single wasted moment in a movie, particularly right at the start. This is probably even truer of such films that use stop-motion animation. When it takes days just to shoot a minute of footage, one imagines that the filmmakers would rather not waste a single second of what's on screen.

Writer/director Chris Butler doesn't waste a moment at the beginning of this film, which comes from Laika, the animation studio that specializes in that old and sadly rare animation technique and in using that style to tell rather eccentric stories. This one is especially odd, and Butler announces that from the start.

Immediately, we get an understanding of Sir Lionel Frost (voice of Hugh Jackman), the member of a wealthy aristocratic family who has, according to some less-than-flattering newspaper articles, spent his inherited fortune on the search for mythical animals. The opening scene has Frost and his long-time-frustrated assistant in a rowboat on a particular lake in Scotland, and at this point, one can probably guess the creature for which he's searching.

Frost is the kind of man who expects certain luxuries, even when he's among nature and without a sign of civilization in sight. It's a certain sort of person who has tea served to him while sitting in a rowboat in the middle of a lake. It's an entirely different sort of person who would complain about the quality of the tea under those circumstances. Frost is the second sort of man.

We learn more about him as the sequence unfolds, including that he's rather daring, given the way that Frost dives into the water to rescue his all-too-disposable assistant from the jaws of the Loch Ness Monster, and also rather uncaring of other people, given how Frost allowed his soon-to-be-former assistant to end up between the teeth of the monster in the first place. The creatures matter more than people—a fact that he explicitly states back at home, prompting the assistant to finally and quite rightly quit. More important than the creatures, though, is Frost's stature as the man who discovered them.

The story and this character are set up pretty quickly, but the film also cements its tone with equal haste and firmness. It's an adventure story, of course, and in Frost's acts of derring-do, being pulled by a rope towed by the awesome force of the monster, there's a real rush of the excitement that only the limitless possibilities of animation can achieve. One marvels, too, at the technical and artistic side of bringing such sights to life, using physical models, sets, and puppets, although most of the marveling only comes in retrospect. We're too caught up in the moment to really appreciate the craft and wonder how the filmmakers did it.

What's really important to the film's success, though, is that it tightly embraces an air of silliness to all of this. We know what we're in for when Frost pulls out a set of bagpipes and lowers an analog speaker into Loch Ness as a lure for the monster. It's a gag that only gets funnier as it progresses, because Butler is committed to it.

With all of this in place (again, just in the opening sequence), the rest of the story unfolds with a similar sense of and commitment to discovery and the absurd. Frost, wanting to become part of an elite adventurers club in London, decides that he finally will track down the elusive Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

When he discovers the creature, Frost also learns that the big-footed, hairy beast, whom he calls Mr. Link (voice of Zach Galifianakis), can talk. After a long time living alone in the woods, Mr. Link wants to go to the Himalayas, where there are rumors that his cryptozoological cousins, the yetis, have established a utopia for their kind. Frost agrees, as long as Mr. Link provides proof of his existence, and the pair receives help from Adelina (voice of Zoe Saldana), the widow of one of Frost's old friends, who wants to make a name for herself in the adventuring game.

The film is filled with business—imaginative action and kooky jokes and exotic places and offbeat characters. Some highlights include a chase on an ocean liner as a rogue wave turns the vessel sideways, which forces the chase's participants to run along the walls of the ship's interior, and a cliffhanger of a climax that keeps finding new, perilous surfaces from which the heroes can hang. The trek takes the characters from the Old West, where a hired gun named Stenk (voice of Timothy Olyphant) is hunting for Frost on behalf of the adventurers club, to India and to Shangri-La. Along the way, Frost learns that the concerns of other people—and creatures—are just as, if not more, important than filling his ego.

It's usually tempting to watch stop-motion animation with an active appreciation for the techniques on display, and perhaps the best thing that can be said about Missing Link is that awareness of the film's craft slips into the background of the mind. That's meant as an admiration for how advanced the technical side of the studio's skills has become—and also as a compliment of the sturdy storytelling on display.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)

Buy the DVD

Buy the Blu-ray