Kubo And The Two Strings

This review may contain spoilers!

Certainly not Laika's best work but still one of the better animated films this year. I would give Kubo And The Two Strings a 7.5/10.

This is a beautiful story about a young kid coming to terms with his family being taken from him and the enormous destiny placed upon his shoulders; it's not necessarily unique but it's a very good quest and coming of age story. Throughout most of this film we are shown what can really be achieved with stop motion animation, there are some incredibly stunning visuals and the vibrant colours within this film are captured in a way that a standard animated films would fail to achieve. The score for this film is exceptional, a lot of the beauty that this film portrays is captured by whoever composed this music.

Charlize Theron, who voiced the Mother, does an extremely good job at playing this more maternal role at the start of the film; she has a very genuine connection with Parkinson and also portrays the morose aspect of her memory loss incredibly well. Ralph Fiennes, who voiced the Moon King, was a fairly intimidating antagonist for this film; Fiennes has a extremely superior tone that really makes you convinced of his role as an all-powerful god. Brenda Vaccaro, who voiced Kameyo, was one of the funniest characters of the film; the way she is a supporting force in Kubo's life made her immediately quite likeable. Rooney Mara, who voiced The Sisters, was an eerily good pair of villains in this film; Mara creates a set of the scariest antagonists that I've ever seen in an animated film.

However the best performance came from Art Parkinson, who voiced Kubo. Parkinson is a young actor who I've seen in a few things over the past few years and who I believe has been very successful at making his mark as an actor. Kubo And The Two Strings however is probably Parkinson's best accomplishment to date; within this film his voice is sent against that of a host of Academy Award winner and nominees and he still manages to stand out ahead of them all. Parkinson creates a role who is very softly spoken yet stands strong and confident by the end of the film. He's funny and a bit of a prankster yet you can see the world of responsibility he feels is upon him throughout the film. More than anything Parkinson succeeds in portraying the hardship and grief Kubo feels in dealing with the loss of both of his parents extremely well.

As much as I enjoyed the animation in this film stop motion has it's flaws and there are moments in the film where these are obvious; in one scene things can look quite fluid but in other the movements get a bit rigid and you're no longer as immersed in the film as you once were. The story was also quite good but it did have it's flaws; the final fight of the film ends in a very disappointing way and the film moves between acts in a way that can be very sudden and jarring, for example when Kubo flies away from his mother and is suddenly woken by Monkey there is no pause the action just continues.

Charlize Theron, who voiced Monkey, was great as the Mother in the first act of the film but when she becomes Monkey Theron's voice acting falters; suddenly we're met with quite a rigid and cold character who doesn't really have much appeal as one of the main characters. Matthew McConaughey, who voiced Beetle, really felt like a role that came out of nowhere and who didn't have much place in the story at first; when he was revealed to be Kubo's father you feel like he was played to be more of a goofball role so the reveal that he is in fact a heroic figure doesn't really work.