[SPOLIER LEVEL: MEDIUM]
"Kubo and the Two Strings" has immediately become one of my favourite films. The film is an animator's dream come true, regardless of whether you're into stop-motion or not! It has set a new high for animated films and, whilst it's a no-brainer for every animation fan to go and see this, is really for everybody!
Let's start with the real star of the film: the animation. The animation in "Kubo" is gorgeous. Inspired by traditional Japanese culture, Laika has made sure you have a definitive feel for the folklore atmosphere of the film. The colours range from the subtle autumn shades of the village, to bright vivid clashes of the skeleton's cave, to dark blurred tones whenever the sisters appear. Colour has always been a favourite feature of mine and I tend to like animated films with a thought-out colour palette. Not only have Laika thought through the animation and the design, but the colours have obviously been taken into account to give us some samurai eye-candy!
Speaking of the skeleton, let's talk about him! He is a BOSS. Being the largest puppet Laika has ever made (twice the size of a human!), it is the most jaw-dropping character design in this movie, and possibly in all of stop motion. Just seeing this thing in every shot he's in makes your skin crawl, with both how creepy he is and the thought of how many cramps the animator's have after moving him. Skeletons have such a complex structure, so this puppet is nothing short of impressive.
"Kubo" is not entirely made of stop motion. Laika has been known for mixing stop-motion with elements of CG and even hand-drawn animation to give us some breathtaking visuals. The CG effects do not take the spotlight away from the stop-motion, but just add that little bit of life to the complicated puppets and backgrounds that show during the fight scenes or scenes that involve the ocean. Animators and filmmakers constantly question whether CG should be used at all in stop-motion films in order to make it "authenticate". My opinion? It is important for CG to not completely take over the animation industry, with hand-drawn animation almost dying (except for in Japan) and Laika and Aardman being the only well-known stop-motion companies. However, the ideas that the writers and the designers had for "Kubo" are very complex and, as impressive as it would be, it would take a lot of time, money and really tired animators to work overtime in order to make every single effect in stop-motion. With the financial crisis Laika is going through, they simply can't be doing with elements which can be achieved quicker and turn out more visually appealing in CG. Considering the grandfather's monster form at the end of "Kubo", Aggie's ghost from "Paranorman" and even the ghost children from "Coraline", these effects could not be achieved through purely stop-motion. I endorse the use of mixing all forms of animation in order to give us visuals we have never seen before and could never imagination, as long as it doesn't get to the point where there's so much CG, you might as well make it a CG movie.
Whilst 3D CG is used a lot for special effects, 2D animation can be seen during the ending credits, and as short as it is, even the credits are beautiful! Laika has a small reputation for placing scenes in the credits or making original art for it, just to go that extra mile for the audience's enjoyment. The credits feature original 2D art and animation, along to a cover of Beetles song 'While my Guitar Gently Weeps' by Regina Spektor, accompanied by a shamisen. At the end of a credits, a time lapse is shown of the "Kubo" crew animating the giant skeleton. That alone is worth staying through the credits for, so you know how much time and effort went into that puppet.
Let's step away from the glorious animation and talk about the story, one of the most important aspects of a film! As much as i like to gush about the animation, the story however is not so much to behold. This film to the bare bones (get it? Skeleton? Ha I'm funny) has quite a predictable storyline with reoccurring cliches that we've seen before in animated adventure movies…or adventure movies in general.
THAT BEING SAID, just because it has a predictable plot, it doesn't mean it's bad. Like I said before, the bare bones of the story is predictable, but the meat that is added to the bones is what makes the plot all the more forgiving. Sure it had done-to-death cliches and expected twists, but the character development, their relationships, the emotion, the music and the animation is what executed the story into something that made it new. For me, I was so invested in Kubo's journey with Monkey and Beetle and their development that I forgot about where the journey itself was heading! I know when I look back on "Kubo" I will easily be able to tell where the cliches are, but at the time, the characters were growing on me so much for being so likeable that I was generally shocked when I didn't see the twists coming! After watching the film I was suddenly reminded of "The Thief and the Cobbler" (the Recobbled Cut), another film which had amazing animation but a weak story. The film is down to the bones boy meets girl and boy saves the day, but I loved how cute the boy and the girl were together and how smooth the hand-drawn was, that I didn't care about the story! When it comes to these kinds of stories, I general don't care if you use them! What does make me angry is when a film does it in a way that I've seen it done before millions of times. "Kubo" executed it differently, and that's why I love the story more than I should.
The story itself, ironically, is about telling stories and how they pass down from generation to generation! Kubo is magical child who can control origami paper with his shamisen and is on a journey, with his friends Monkey and Beetle, to find his father's armour in order to protect himself from his grandfather, The Moon King, who stole his left eye as a baby. The film is told as if "Kubo" is an old Japanese folktale, similar to "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" (which really is an old Japanese folktale). This is another reason to forgive the story for how simple it's written! There are many scenes that truly did make me feel good inside: when Kubo's mum tells him stories at night, when Kubo prays to speak to his father, when Kubo, Beetle and Monkey all eat together and just talk, when Monkey reveals her true story and EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN CUTE MOMENT BETWEEN MONKEY AND BEETLE. Who would've thought that in my life I would say "I ship a monkey and a beetle together"? Throughout each of these scenes, some serious character development is happening, accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack which mixes Japanese instruments with a traditional orchestra. This film makes you feel so many emotions, until the scene where the twists reveal themselves and you end up having a breakdown! Not because the twists are bad, but because the scene is SAD. SOMEBODY GIVE KUBO A HUG.
And although I love those scenes so much, there are other moments that really graded on a patience. Beetle is meant to be the film's comic relief and while I did laugh at most of his lines, some of his actions got a little tedious, to the point where something bad would happen due to the fact that he's an idiot. The scene where the twists are revealed is still a scene I love but it raises SO MANY QUESTIONS that we will never get the answers too! And the ending…again, it's really sweet but also a tad preachy. The word 'story' is tossed around so many times in the ending it might as well be a hot potato. I get it. I get the message. I don't want to hear the words story for a long time now, especially after writing that word so much in this review.
Overall, "Kubo and the Two Strings" is worth every penny. Laika needs your money to make more outstanding films like this, and they do deserve it. But don't just see it for Laika, see it for yourselves! Get yourself invested in this gorgeous film and I guarantee...you will feel emotions.
But seriously, if "The Emoji Movie" gets more money than this film, I would be embarrassed for every movie-goer out there.
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