This week, we are going to talk about wolf walkers. The movie was released in November 2020 to stream on Apple TV. Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stuart and nominated for the best-animated feature in the 93rd Academy Award (2021). The cast is Eva Whittaker (Mebh), Honor Kneafsey (Robyn), Simon Mcburney (Oliver), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Moll), and Nora Twomey (Bridget). IMDb gave the movie 8/10, Rotten Tomatoes 99/10, and the public 94%, making the general rating 91/100. 

(PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING SPOILERS BELOW:  If you are interested in watching the movie and don’t want spoilers, please ship this part until you get to watch the film also, no spoilers on the comments, or I will be forced to delete your comment. Thank you!)

The story begins with a young girl and her father moving from England to Ireland for a new beginning. Her father was a Hunter who worked for the monarchy of a small village in the middle of the woods. Robyn didn’t want to be cleaning the house and just stayed in the house. She is inspired to be a hunter like her dad to protect the village from the beast living in the forest. One day, she follows her dad to the woods with her loyal bird friend Merlyn, where she gets trapped in one of the hunter traps. Suddenly a wolf appears, and Robyn starts freaking out, believing she is reaching to attack her. Then, the wolf bites her by trying to cut the trap. When she is finally free, the animal runs away from her, going into a beautiful hidden waterfall, the wolf’s layer. She meets a girl, Mebn, who is a wolfwalker with her mother, Moll. They both lived in the woods, but Moll was in a coma that was not explained then. Mebn tells Robyn everything about her species, including how they transform from human to wolf and the healing powers they possess. At that moment, Robyn realizes that wolves are not as bad as they say in the village and starts becoming close to that moment. That night, while Robyn was sleeping, she started feeling weird and suddenly noticed she had become a wolf. Scared of her dad, she runs to the woods, looking for her new friend. Mebn tells her that she has become part of the pack when she finally turns into her wolf self (that sounds weird). She also explains to Robyn that she will turn into a wolf every time she falls asleep. Mebn shows her how amazing being a wolf is and they become even closer. She tells Robyn that her mother, Moll, was away some time ago but hasn’t returned as promised; she is scared that something might happen to her. Robyn vowed to help her to find her mother the next day, but everything started going wrong. She tries going back to her house but suddenly smells a familiar sense, and she decides to follow it. As she does, some castle guards discover her. She starts running to the familiar feel and discovers that the king has Moll in the castle inside a cage. She tries to help her, but Moll only insists that she help Mebn and the pack out of the territory so they can be safe. The king discovers Robyn and runs away back to her body. Sadly, it doesn’t end there; the village makes a big deal about seeing a wolf in town, and the king gets mad at Oliver as his job is to keep wolves away. The king punishes Oliver for not doing his job and Robyn for defending her father. In the morning, Mebn waited hours for Robyn to return to the woods to search for her mother, but obviously, that never happened. Desperate for her friend, she enters the village and looks for her. After some minutes, she finally finds her and asks why she didn’t go with her to search for her mom. In tears, she tells her to go away with her pack to be safe, but she tells her she is not going anywhere without her mother. They get into a big fight as Mebn thinks Robyn is a traitor for breaking her promise and runs away. Later that day, the king announced he had called the wolf from last night and would kill him in front of the village. Both girls hear the news and run to the castle. Mebn tries to get to the stage where the king is with her mother, and Robyn tries to stop her because she fears getting hurt. Robyn fails her mission; Mebn gets on the stage, confesses she is a wolfwalker, and runs to the woods to get back up to destroy the village and save her mother. Robyn changes her mind and saves Moll by directing her to the woods. Mebn and Moll reunited with happy tears; sadly, Oliver shoots at Moll, supposing she is attacking his daughter. 

Mebn takes her mother to the waterfalls to cure her, and Oliver tries taking Robyn back to the village but refuses and runs away as a wolf with her new pack. A war starts between humans and wolves in the woods while Mebn is trying to keep her mother alive, but it doesn’t work because she is not strong enough without the pack and Robyn. Some minutes pass, and a plot twist comes; the king attacks Robyn, and Oliver gets so mad that he turns into a wolf and ends his life, throwing him down the falls. Robyn and Oliver return to the cave to help Mebn. Finally, after saving Moll, both move with the pack and end up with a happy ever after.

So, let’s talk. The storyline was catchy for me from the beginning of the story; it’s pretty good for a kid’s movie and is simple, entertaining, and fun. The best features are the animation settings, visual effects, and music; those were 10/10. I did have a problem with Robyn, but I don’t know why. It is just that she is the most basic one of all the characters in the movie. I felt like she was the typical Wattpad girl saying, “I’m not like other girls; I dress in an oversize shirt and am one of the boys,” a basic bitch. I’m not going to lie; I did like the character, but it gave me that vibe. The movie touches on many profound things, for example, Oliver’s fear of losing Robyn because she was the only thing he had left. We don’t know exactly what happened to Robyn’s mom or if she has HAD siblings. We only know that she came from freking England to Ireland to have “A new start,” which is a little suspicious to me.

Also, the phrase “The woods are getting smaller every day” really hurt me; it reminded me of what we do with nature. Anyway, in general, the movie was great. Returning to the visual effects returned me to those years when I was a baby and Winnie the Pooh was on TV. It has the same animation effect I haven’t seen in years. I also needed help with the sound mixing. For people who don’t know “sound mixing” and “music soundtrack” are entirely different in movies, it’s not bad if you don’t see the difference. Many people don’t know it. The soundtrack is all the songs without lyrics that appear in the movie. The sound mixing is all the voices recorded for the movie. Returning to the main point, the sound mixing seems a little off. In moments the volume of the votes doesn’t go with the film. I’m not crazy; if you check the movie reviews on IMBb, you can notice many people who saw the same thing while watching the movie.

I know I already talked about the storyline, but I want to put something on the table. As I said before, the storyline was catchy but not original. We can see a lot of kid’s movies with the same type of story. In HTYD (How To Train Your Dragon), they give us the story of a different young boy in his village. He lived only with one parent, and all the villagers thought he was weird until he met a creature who changed his life, becoming best friends. One of the comments I read put as an example Pocahontas and Brave, and I can’t agree more: young women who saw things differently and then made some action that changed the life of the village forever; sound familiar? Yeah, that’s what I thought.