Review of Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) by Nedryerson1 — 25 Feb 2017

Kubo and the Two Strings is the new Laika movie and after the disappointment of Boxtrolls, this is a renaissance back to the time of Coraline and ParaNorman. The story, as always, show us a kid as protagonist, who is gifted and will have to face supernatural forces in order to prove him/herself the inherent value of his/her uniqueness.

Here, the storyline is a quest for solving a family conflict, enriched with moments of self-discovery, acknowledging family relationships and learning the importance of memoirs and ancestors. With captivating plot-twists the dynamism is maintained and the protagonist’s process never becomes too dense or tedious.

The problematic is without questioning, at the ending, when everything falls in the trap of an animated picture, resolving the conflict childishly and very quickly in order to get everyone happy. When comparing with the outcome in ParaNorman, where forces of good and evil preferred to talk and good showed evil how things actually were with the objective to teach instead of defeat; Kubo did nothing of that, although it could have.

Besides that, the most outstanding achievement of this film is the stop motion and visual effects, where body movements and facial expressions are just basics; the natural flow of hair, fur, clothes and origami figures made it a work of art; and the job with the antagonist put this movie in a museum.