Movie Review: In 'Wildwood,' tons of stop-start work build a world the story can’t match

Everything about “Wildwood” is ambitious. It's a stop-motion animated movie that stretches over two hours, with 230 hand-controlled puppets across 132 sets, shot frame by frame by frame by frame. It sounds exhausting to make and that's also sometimes what it feels like to watch it.

Wildly industrious, terribly quirky and technically dazzling, “Wildwood” is also overly violent and uses labor-intensive world-building to only slightly tweak fairy tale conventions. It's a movie in which individual toes curl and feathers rustle gloriously but the message is a wan, “Don't be in a hurry to grow up.” The technology outstrips the story.

“Wildwood” is based on a 2011 middle-grade fantasy novel written by Colin Meloy, frontman for The Decemberists, and illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis. The movie has a screenplay by Chris Butler, direction by Travis Knight and a new stomping song by The Decemberists, “The Better Part of Bravery.”

It centers on a sullen teenager, Prue McKeel, who lives in Portland, Oregon, with her overprotective parents — weirdly, her dad totally looks like Post Malone without facial tattoos — and baby brother, Mac. It's VERY Portland, with nice nods to Powell’s City of Books and Voodoo Doughnut. At one point, the filmmakers embrace the weird with a passing image of what looks like a guy on a unicycle playing flaming bagpipes wearing a Darth Vader mask.

Prue doesn't believe in anything but the world she can see outside her window — “I'm not buying it. I don't want any part of your fairy tale,” she says — despite her parents' embrace of spirituality. “There's magic in you,” says dad.

When Prue is looking after Mac one day at the playground, crows snatch him and fly away to a place called the Impassable Wilderness. Prue, nicely voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, naturally pursues, along with a reluctant companion, Curtis, an awkward gamer with a schoolyard crush.

In the wild, there is, of course, a massive data center — no, it's just a fantastically realized forest protected by magic, with light bouncing off ferns and glorious waterfalls. It also has talking animals, bandits, soldiers, farmers, fussy bureaucrats and a stern Dowager Governess (Carey Mulligan), who sounds friendly but may be hiding a nefarious plan. There's a K9 police officer in a tie and a leather jacket who seems pretty smart but nonetheless chases his own tail.

“I don't know whether this is terrifying or adorable,” Prue says, as she encounters rams in suits and tortoises carrying mail on their backs. “Wildwood” is a bit of both; the terrifying includes a beheading, bloody hand-to-hand combat, eyes being gouged out, animals in chains, prisoners shot in cages and a crying baby with a dagger plunging toward his abdomen.

Prue must band together the good humans and animals in this land to defeat the baddies and rescue her brother, uncovering a shocking family secret along the way (and it's not, apparently, that her dad is Post Malone). It's all pretty standard stuff. One thing that isn't standard is the film's hatred for invasive English ivy, but that gets lost in the weeds.

Take a pause for the work that's gone into this: More than 142,000 3D faces were printed for the puppets, 3,800 feathers were crafted for one giant eagle, and the whole thing took so long to make that 85 production babies were born. Some puppets were built with imbedded devices that make them look like they're breathing.

Some of the celebrity voices really stand out, especially a rat by Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay's Curtis and an owl by Richard E. Grant. But others make little impression. Only at the credits did I learn Tom Waits voiced a coyote.

The filmmakers have been faithful to the world Meloy and Ellis originally created, but it takes a while to get used to. There's an army of snarling coyotes — they're suddenly having a moment thanks to this and “Coyote vs. Acme” — who wear what look like 18th century military uniforms with tall black hats and gold brocade epaulettes. Why is not clear. This forest has muskets and rusty mail gasoline-powered trucks. It’s all very twee, not very organic.

The filmmakers use this fantastical world to try to talk about grief, growing up, environmentalism and unity in the face of fascism, but none convincingly. Why Curtis has to show he's finally a hero only with violence is a sad way to come of age. And what Prue has learned after all this mayhem is unclear. Even so, the sheer amount of labor in this labor of love has to be applauded. One of the best lines appears after the credits: “This film was handmade in Oregon.”

“Wildwood,” a Fathom Entertainment release that opens in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “strong fantasy violence/bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language.” Running time: 132 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

This story has been corrected to show the name of the Portland store is Voodoo Doughnut, not Donuts.

Travis Knight, from left, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Carey Mulligan and Jacob Tremblay pose for photographers upon arrival at the premiere for the film "Wildwood" as part of the London film festival in London, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Vivek Ramaswamy ’s team confirmed late Tuesday that it produced a controversial advertisement featuring the estranged mother of Amy Acton, and the campaign said it will spend $4 million to promote it despite facing bipartisan rebuke for dredging up the painful childhood of his Democratic opponent in Ohio’s governor’s race.

The decision exacerbates a deeply personal element in one of the country's most closely watched and expensive campaigns for state office. Questions about the video will likely shadow Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire who previously ran for president but has never before held public office, in the final two weeks of the contest. Democrats said he was growing desperate at a moment when more than 676,000 people have already cast ballots in Ohio.

The advertisement features Acton's birth mother, Donna Arthur, calling her “a liar” and insinuating she has mental health issues. Acton, Ohio's former public health director, has made no secret of facing homelessness and abuse as a child. Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted for raping Acton.

The video's origins were initially murky when it started circulating online. It first surfaced in a post by an Ohio political blogger, then spread across social media. It did not include the “paid for” tag that is legally required to air on television so viewers can know who produced and paid for it. D.J. Brynes, who blogs as “The Rooster,” told CNN he got the video from a voter who viewed it as part of a poll and recorded it.

Connie Luck, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy's campaign, said Acton's mother was not paid for the one-minute video, which she said will stream online and air on television.

Acton spent Tuesday condemning Ramaswamy for the ad even before his campaign confirmed its provenance.

“I won’t normalize somebody who has said that my childhood is just something I’m complaining about, who today just released an ad using my birth mother, who I was removed from at the age of 12 for severe abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse," she told Spectrum News, a cable news outlet in Ohio.

She said Ramaswamy made similar personal attacks during his run for the Republican presidential nomination two years ago, calling it “a lifelong pattern.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign initially issued a statement that did not address whether he was responsible for the ad or knew who produced it. In the earlier statement, Luck said Acton “has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of.”

Casey Putsch, a car designer and YouTube provocateur who competed against Ramaswamy for the Republican nomination for governor, said on social media that he would be voting for Acton in the wake of the ad's release. He called the video “pretty damn low.”

Acton's campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, who said the two were removed from their mother Donna Arthur's custody as children after their stepfather, Arthur's husband, was indicted for raping Acton as a child. Acton has not seen Arthur, whose last known address was in Pennsylvania, since they were in a courtroom together in 1978.

Later Tuesday, the Acton campaign released a video featuring Stearns, who recalls his older sister taking “the worst” of the abuse they faced as children in order to protect him and disparages Ramaswamy and his allies for exploiting the situation.

According to police and court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cledith Arthur was arrested and charged with the rape of his stepdaughter, then 12, in July 1978, after Acton's biological father reported him to authorities. The abuse allegedly happened from December 1976 to April 1978.

Cledith Arthur pleaded not guilty. He was indicted by a grand jury that September, but failed to show at a court hearing and remained a fugitive until at least 1981. He has since died.

High-profile Republicans who back Ramaswamy — including Donald Trump Jr. and influencer Laura Loomer — elevated the video in online posts.

But others joined Democrats in condemning the ad. Meghan McCain called it “dastardly” and Dan Hauser, a strategist for Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, said he deleted his post sharing the video once he realized “the very serious accusations that caused their issues.”

The Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, described the spot as “disgusting” and said everyone — including his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted — should be willing to condemn it. Husted's campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump listens as gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at a campaign rally at the Covelli Centre, in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)