Streaming Service: Netflix
Movie Name/Year: Wendell & Wild (2022)
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Length: 1h 45min
Rating: PG-13
Production/Distribution: Artists First, Gotham
Group, Monkeypaw Productions, Netflix Animation, Netflix, SIF 309 Film Music
Director: Henry Selick
Writer: Henry Selick, Jordan Peele, Clay McLeod Chapman
Actors: Lyric Ross, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Angela
Bassett, James Hong, Sam Zelaya, Tamara Smart, Seema Virdi, Ramona Young, Ving
Rhames, Michele Mariana
Blurb from IMDb: Two scheming demon
brothers, Wendell and Wild, enlist the aid of 13-year-old Kat Elliot to summon
them to the Land of the Living.
Selina’s Point of View:
For some strange reason,
I saw Jordan Peele (
Us, Get Out, Nope) credited as a writer for
Wendell
& Wild and still thought it was just going to be a cute, spooky,
Halloween flick. Although it had some of that, it was also a gut punch that hit
way too close to home for me.
Wendell
& Wild
followed the tale of a girl named Kat who lost her parents at an early age. As
a result of that trauma, she got angry and started acting out. Adults wrote her
off as a lost cause (for the most part), which made things worse for her. I
suffered my own trauma at an early age and fell into a very similar cycle of
acting out and being written off – which just made me angrier.
I don’t know the
history of writers Peele, Henry Selick (
Coraline, The Nightmare Before
Christmas, James and the Giant Peach), or Clay McLeod Chapman (
The Boy,
Beyond the White Space, Late Bloomer) – but someone went through something as
a kid because they got it exactly right.
You do get a lot
of that goofy Key & Peele type of humor, but when the scenes really get
into what’s at the heart of Kat’s anger the mood changes. I can’t really go
into it without spoilers, but I will say that there’s a part near the end that hits
so close to home that I straight-up ugly cried. Anyone labeled a ‘lost cause’
as a kid because they were forced to deal with trauma that adults struggle
with, is likely going to feel the same way that I did.
I loved it. Even
with the gut punches, I’d watch
Wendell & Wild over and over again. It’s
just not the turn-your-brain-off flick that I thought it would be. It’s extremely
poignant and insightful.
It was also
gorgeous. Every scene embodied the exact feel it was going for. Whether it was meant
to be gross or heartfelt, the animation gave 100%.
Wendell
& Wild is
a film I would recommend to everyone. Not just teens, but to parents as well. I
wish my mom had a flick like this to watch when I was younger. It could have
made a huge difference.
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 81%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 86%
Metascore – 72%
Metacritic User Score – N/A
IMDB Score – 6.8/10
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 5/5
P.S. Short after credits scene.
Movie Trailer: