Directed by Henry Selick
Screenplay by Henry Selick & Jordan Peele
Based on Wendell & Wild (unpublished) by Henry Selick & Clay McLeod Chapman
Produced by Henry Selick, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld
Voice cast
Keegan-Michael Key as Wendell
Jordan Peele as Wild
Lyric Ross as Katherine “Kat” Koniqua Elliot
Serelle Strickland as Young Kat
Angela Bassett as Sister Helley
James Hong as Father Bests
Ving Rhames as Buffalo Belzer
Sam Zelaya as Raúl Cocolotl
Tamara Smart as Siobhan Klaxon
Gary Gatewood as Delroy Elliot
Gabrielle Dennis as Wilma Elliot
Maxine Peake as Irmgard Klaxon
David Harewood as Lane Klaxon
Igal Naor as Manberg
Seema Virdi as Sloane
Ramona Young as Sweetie
Natalie Martinez as Marianna Cocolotl
Tantoo Cardinal as Ms. Hunter
Michele Mariana as Sister Daley / Sister Chinstrap
Phoebe Lamont as Bearzebub
Nick E. Tarabay as Fawzi
Joe Tran as Dr. Ngo
Caroline Crawford as Cassandra & Sukie Jordan
Cinematography Peter Sorg
Edited by Mandy Hutchings & Jason Hooper
Music by Bruno Coulais
Production companies Monkeypaw Productions, Gotham Group[1]
Distributed by Netflix
Stop-motion animation has been a mature technology for years. Since at least Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride nearly 20 years ago. It even became feasible for use in TV series, such as Wallace and Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep.
Guillermo del Toro gave us all a master lesson in what the medium was capable of in last year’s Pinnocchio. And there are stop-motion/CGI blends where it’s nearly impossible to see which is which.
It was so good that when he started on Jordan Peele’s Wendell and Wild, he decided a step back in the technology was needed.
According to Wikipedia, “After Coraline, [Henry] Selick felt stop-motion animation had become so smooth it had become indistinguishable from computer animation, defeating some of the purpose of stop-motion. He decided to allow flaws, such as keeping the seam lines on replacement faces visible, and shooting fewer frames per second in some scenes. Except for a stop-motion software called Dragonframe, he used more or less the same types of tools and techniques he used in Coraline more than a decade earlier.”
It reminds me of those stories about magicians who have real magic powers and decide to monetize them by performing on stage, but have to include errors and omissions so the audience doesn’t realize it is, in fact, real magic.
Which doesn’t mean Selick and Peele’s Wendell and Wild doesn’t have real magic in it. The character design is a wonder to behold. While some have evident resemblance to the actors voicing them (Key, Peele and Basset in particular) the appearance of all is utterly unique and engaging. The title character Kat transitions from a sweet eight year old enjoying a candied apple (Serelle Strickland) to a 13 year old hard-edged goth princess (Lyric Ross). Most of the characters are fashioned in an unforgettable manner, including the janitor/science teacher who is wheelchair bound because while he has feet, he has no ankles.
Most go against type: The nuns are ugly, stern, intimidating, but not cruel or abusive. The school’s ‘Heathers’ are snotty but not mean. Even Satan turns out to be not such a bad chap once you get to know him. And Wendell and Wild are about what you might expect demons played by Key and Peele to be like.
The story isn’t wildly unique, but the story-telling is. If you like Key and Peele and Tim Burton, you’re going to love this.
Now on Netflix.