Review: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS  (ANIMATION/FANTASY-ADVENTURE)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Travis Knight
Featuring the Voices of: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro
Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, action and peril.
101 minutes
Verdict: Gorgeous, empathetic and exciting, full of engaging characters and awe-inspiring hand-crafted environments, KUBO finds Laika Entertainment back in peak form.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS IF YOU LIKED:
PARANORMAN  (2012)
THE BOXTROLLS  (2014)
CORALINE  (2009)
CORPSE BRIDE  (2005)
THE WIZARD OF OZ  (1939)
If nothing else, KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is an extravagantly gorgeous feast for the eyes, but better than that, it is many somethings else.  The latest from the Portland-based stop-motion animation studio Laika Entertainment is their most ambitious, a fantasy action-adventure quest story in a fashion similar to THE WIZARD OF OZ, gorgeously hand-crafted and stylistically, atmospherically bold.  Like the best of Laika's films so far, it isn't perfect (most movies aren't, but I think you know what I mean), in this case subject to a rushed ending, but when it works, it's simply marvelous and more than makes up for it at its highs and is a truly unique product, continuing to prove Laika one of the best animation houses in the business.
Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a storyteller in a mystical Ancient Japan, playing a magical shamisen, a three-stringed musical instrument, to make paper figures dance, playing out his stories for coins in the village to support his mother, also gifted in magic, but who wavers in and out of lucidity.  Kubo wears an eye patch, the result of his grandfather the Moon King stealing his eye as an infant, according to the story his mother tells, and her frightening Sisters (voiced by Rooney Mara), fellow daughters of the Moon King, killed Kubo's father and now search for Kubo in order to take his remaining eye.  One night, Kubo makes the mistake of staying out past dark and the Sisters find him, but his mother stalls them long enough for him to make his escape and brings his wooden Monkey charm to life (voiced by Charlize Theron) to guide him on a quest to claim the three scattered pieces of his father's armor.  Along the way, they encounter a comical but heroic samurai warrior, cursed into the form of a beetle and without his memories, who helps them on their quest that brings them into contact with towering skeletons and glaring underwater eyeballs.

Every frame of it is animated by hand with beautiful armature puppets on incredibly detailed, huge environments (one of the larger motorized props is shown being set up in time-lapse footage behind the ending credits), and every frame of it is sumptuous if not breathtaking.  There seems to be something about the unusually painstaking, labor of love that is stop-motion animation that cultivates a uniquely audacious creativity that doesn't come as consistently with computer-animation.  KUBO is darker than the average family film, but maybe on par with SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS or others among Disney's earlier fairy tales, and trusts its audience far more than other animation houses today are usually inclined to.  It's very strange, and well aware and proud of that, but in a way that draws you in if you'll let it.  There's a lot of action with a surprising ferocity and thrills without becoming excessive, and it isn't action for action's sake; rather, it enriches the fantastical world.  Beetle is a little goofy but funny, and Charlize Theron is perfectly cast as Monkey for similar traits that made her such a knockout as Furiosa in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, her hard edge, complimented by a maternal and subtly fragile undercurrent. 

Just a week after SAUSAGE PARTY, curiously, KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is also a surprisingly humanist animated story, albeit one with more grace and, well, humanity.  Kubo's strength is the strength his mother gives him, to empathize and feel for the humans in the world around him, which is why he's a storyteller.  In contrast, the Moon King (voiced by Ralph Fiennes) and his other daughter, Kubo's mother's Sisters, eerie, witch-like beings, don't want to destroy him; they want to destroy his humanity, so together, they can be a "perfect", inhuman family in the heavens without pain or suffering, for themselves or for others.  It refutes a notion of the cold, clinical "ideal" family espoused by certain "family values" factions, because without love or empathy, then what's the point?  It's a very pro-family film.  Most of it is a real blast, but toward the movie's climactic sequence, the narrative stumble a bit, going to some interesting places, but ones that don't quite feel as fleshed out as they should be. 
When it all works, it's crazy entertaining, and incredibly fresh after a summer of fairly monotonous animated comedies.  The characters are splendid, animated with astonishingly nuanced performances (I particularly like Monkey), and the engaging magical world is full of thrills and laughs, making for one of the best movies of the season.

                                                                                                                                                 Images via Focus Features/Laika