★★★★★ OUT 17 FEBRUARY CINEMAS
Some premises seem almost tailor-made to raise red flags about potentially cloying levels of whimsy. A largely stop-motionanimated mock-doc centred on sentient shells could so easily face the same cutesy-landfill fate as the likes of, say, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. That Marcel The Shell… in fact excels, sidestepping mawkishness, is testament to the skill of director Dean Fleischer Camp (his feature debut) and co-writers Nick Paley and Jenny Slate.