Movie Breakdown: Wendell & Wild

Pre-Screening Stance:

Henry Selick has a pretty dang great resume (see: Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.), so I’d be interested in Wendell & Wild even if it only had his name on it. However, since he co-wrote it with the one and only Jordan Peele, I’ve made the easy jump from interested to excited.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Frankly, I could have watched the visually lush Wendell & Wild with no sound on, and I still would have had a good time. The film follows a young lady, Kat (Lyric Ross), who gets roped into a whole scheme by two demon bros, Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Jordan Peele). You see, those two want to build their own amusement park, but they need money, and the only place they can get it is in the land of the living. And Kat, who holds the power to summon the duo right on up from down below, blames herself for the death of her parents and is desperate to have a second chance with them. The two parties strike a deal, but with Wendell and Wild being demons, the specifics have more wiggle room than Kat expects.

While Wendell & Wild does have some dramatically sharp moments and plenty of laughs to go around, the real draw here is just how creative the visuals are at nearly every turn. Seriously, I very much feel as though I just thought “that’s neat” for the entirety of the film’s hour and 45 minute runtime. That Henry Selick really is something else.

Wendell & Wild hits Netflix this Friday, October 28. You should watch it.

One Last Thought:

If I had kids, I’d let them watch this movie, but that’s likely because my parents never censored anything and I totally turned out “fine” (or whatever). For those that are sensitive about such things though, you should note that it does have some scary stuff and is very much a PG-13 affair.