The Boxtrolls

With the excellent films Coraline, ParaNorman, and now The Boxtrolls, the stop-motion animation studio Laika has firmly established itself as the smartest and therefore best purveyor of animated entertainment working today. The Boxtrolls moves beyond the paranormal fixations of its Laika predecessors, effortlessly creating a unique fantasy world that is equal parts tradition and irreverence. The setting here is the pre-industrial metropolis of Cheesebridge, a seaside city whose streets spiral around the sides and top of a drooping mountain. As the film opens, Cheesebridge is overrun by the Boxtrolls, a species of frittering and jabbering underground creatures who wear boxes over their torsos and pilfer from the humans at night. One of the film's great strengths is its ability to invest every character with personality and humanity and existential preoccupations, even a literal cartoon villain and his gang of doofy henchmen. D.B.