'The Boxtrolls': Creepy in the tradition of 'Coraline'

"THE BOXTROLLS" comes to us from Laika, the animation studio behind "Coraline" and "ParaNorman," movies that share a knack for the grotesque.

Laika goes nuts with it in "The Boxtrolls," the story of a boy raised by nocturnal trolls, though these creatures are anything but macabre - they are, in fact, the cutest thing in animated movies since the the minions of "Despicable Me."

The truly ugly figures here are the grown-up humans, administrators of a Dickensian city (the accents and setting are Victorian England) where city fathers take money dedicated for roads, schools and hospitals and spend it instead on cheese.

Cheese is the movie's metaphor for wasteful and silly consumerism, for an obsession with status - the city is run by a privileged circle of men in pompous white hats who meet in the evening for private cheese tastings, heedless of the city in their charge.

Their snobby exclusivity inspires envy in Mr. Snatcher (Ben Kinglsey, who has a wonderful voice for villainy), who proposes to earn entry into the exclusive club by ridding the city of the boxtrolls, little creatures that scavenge at night - the citizens live in fear of them, as the boxtrolls are said to have kidnapped a human boy (Isaac Hempstead Wright).

They haven't, of course - the boy's living happily among them. In fact, he thinks he's one of them, and only comes to accept his status as human (regretfully) when called upon to save his boxtroll family from the clutches of the dastardly Snatcher, with the help of a curious human girl (Elle Fanning).

"The Boxtrolls" has been criticized for being sluggish (it does take a while to hit its stride), opaque and a little creepy, maybe too creepy for kids.

I actually found its cheese-y take on detached elites to be fairly straightforward and on point, and I rather liked the animation, even at its most sinister - Snatcher, with his round belly and crooked legs, has a spider's menace.

We could use a little grotesquery in animation, after the scrubbed faces, inspirational boosterism and auto-tuned balladeering of "Frozen."

Also, no one does depth-of-field like Laika - they make use of the three-dimensionality of the medium like no one else. Even so, at 100 minutes, it's too dang long.