Travis Knight’s stop-motion animated Wildwood (B-) wanders into a fantasy forest, ambitious visual terrain for sure, but lingers in the weeds of mediocre narrative. It’s hard to know where homage branches into facsimile as an otherworld journey akin to Narnia and battles right out of Tolkien’s Middle Earth commence. Like Labyrinth, a female teenager’s little brother is abducted as the plot’s inciting incident. This protagonist’s journey across Portland railroad tracks into the “Impassable Forest” reveals an alternate reality inhabited by a villain trying to fill an emotional void, factions of talking animals and a fussy parade of adventures that rarely feel as interesting as the fanciful sequences simply in urban Oregon. The ornate animation, splendid indeed, is the reason to behold this work. Smart script choices early on roundly devolve as the plot machinery progresses, with too many characters left undeveloped. The plucky heroine voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee gets most of the wry and winning lines while high-pedigreed talent including Carrie Milligan and Mahershala Ali don’t have much stuff to strut. No doubt this work is leagues more lush and creative than most kiddie fare out there, but as a slightly more adult and sometimes violent alternative, it is a beautiful mixed bag.