Kubo: Der tapfere Samurai

"Kubo and the Two Strings" is a lovely film...and even more amazing because it was made mostly utilizing stop-motion. It's obvious that the folks from Laika Studio really cared and worked hard to make the film this artistic and pleasing to the eyes.

The story is about a magical boy who has been kept in hiding for many years. It turns out that the child's grandfather is a cruel supernatural being...and the boy's aunts are intent on capturing the boy. To protect him are a snow monkey, a strange samurai/beetle hybrid and an origami miniature soldier.

The story is very strange...with many unusual elements. Relax....and quickly your brain will stop questioning and you can enjoy the strange, otherworldly tale. Incredibly well animated, a delight to the eyes and a nice story all work together to make this a special film...one that adults can enjoy just as much as their kids.

Kubo was the first fully Claymation film I have scene, and it was fantastic to see. I am a huge fan of the art style and want so much more of it. The story was charming, and even exceptionally enthralling for the first half of the film, but slows to a halt during Act III, crippling its momentum. The art style alone makes this movie worth watching, and I will see anything that took this much work and artistic talent on the big screen in coming years.

"Kubo and the Two Strings" is a hard movie to explain. There is a story in it and the adventure is grand and fun, but I can't place it into a category of traditional storytelling. The themes of the film are the values of memories and how we truly can never forget people that we lose throughout our lifetime. Very mature themes that are handled with such finesse and creativity that I can't say I have seen anything like it before. Even when you as the audience know where the story is headed, the film surprises you with the delivery and you actually grow and learn with the characters.

The strength of the film is the pure visceral experience it provides. The visuals and sound had a layer of depth and drama that you feel in your inner core. It is more of an experience than it is a movie that you watch. Throughout the film, I felt moments of sadness, loss, happiness, horror, fear, and accomplishment. It is a movie that truly raises the bar for animation and it saddens me that many people will not check it out as it is very different from traditional animated films that we are used to seeing from other major animation studios.

So much care and attention went into this film. The world Laika has created is rich with so much history, story, mythos, and culture that even some movies and series that are much longer can't fully create. I felt that the world is living and that magic is truly alive. I love how the character make it feel special that magic exists, but aren't put of by it, when they see it for themselves and have to question the logic.

The characters are fun and lovable, but also brave and dimensional. Not one character felt out of place and they're inclusion felt important. The voice casting is top-notch and I felt like the celebrities actually made an effort. Unlike many big-budget animated productions, The voice actors weren't distracting and added their own layer of charisma that enhanced and drew attention to the characters. Monkey is probably the best character and I feel like she'll be the fan favorite as she's funny, powerful, and a total bada**.

Overall, Laika has produced probably their best animated film to date and that is saying a lot from a studio that produces quality efforts time and time again. "Kubo and the Two Strings" is unlike anything out there and deserves to be seen on the big screen. The animation alone is breathtakingly gorgeous. The beautiful score and music only adds to the complexity of the film. It is probably the best film of 2016 so far and I find it hard to beat. I highly recommend that people check out this highly creative experience.

If this film was told from another perspective, Kubo and the Two Strings might be considered a bit preachy. It still might be, regardless. But no matter how you look at it, it is something to be looked at more than once. It is simply an amazing work of animated achievement in cinema.

Set in what could be medieval Japan, a little boy named Kubo scratches out a meager existence on the village streets earning just enough for him and his mother to survive. For her part, mom (voiced by Charlize Theron) sits at the mouth of their mountaintop cave in a comatose state every day until dusk. This is also the time when Kubo must be home, not only to be there when she snaps out of it to regale him with stories of his long lost warrior father, but so he can be safe from the evil that bewitched his mother and left him with only one eye. Failing to do this one fateful night forces Kubo on a journey to recover mythical armor and weapons that will beat back the forces of darkness and restore love and harmony to his life and the lives of others. Aiding him on his quest are a miniature monkey carving come to life, an origami samurai, and a beetle/man warrior (Matthew McConaughey).

What is truly exceptional about Kubo and the Two Strings is not the story. The characters have American English accents and are not Asian. A couple characters aren't really fleshed out (those of Brenda Vaccaro and Ralph Fiennes for example). Although the film is geared toward a younger audience, there are deep themes of rebirth and reincarnation that are a major part of the movie and seem heavy handed, as was hinted at earlier. The story is not the star, the presentation of the story is what shines.

Anyone who is familiar with Laika studios work (Coraline, The Boxtrolls) will not be disappointed in how Kubo and the Two Strings looks. For the uninitiated, be prepared to see a film that hearkens back to the old style of painstaking, stop-motion animation with a splash of 21st century wizardry. These filmmakers have done what other strive to do with budgets two, four, even six times larger. They have made an animated world that pulls you in with its realism. It doesn't come off as cartoon like. Eyes glisten, teeth are almost translucent, hair blows in the wind, characters have shadows. Any shortcomings in the script are quickly forgiven when the evil sisters float into the scene or when Kubo (Art Parkinson) captivates the town folk with his storytelling. It's the attention to detail, the craftsmanship, and artistic appreciation that sets films like Kubo and the Two Strings apart from other animated feature films. The filmmakers have learned a lot from the old masters and have served notice that they are at the top of their game. Just sit back and let them and their latest undertaking work their magic on you.

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Stop-Motion animation can be a thing of pure beauty. I've been a fan of Laika's previous films (particularly Coraline and ParaNorman to a great extent), and so I really was excited for this. Based on the trailers, it looked like a dazzling experience and I was sure that it would not fail to meet expectations. I was right. There's a real sense of artistry to the film that is missing in a lot of other kids' animated films. It's about family, the power of memory, and longing, and it manages to create some truly memorable, fantastic villains that happen to be both well-written and really terrifying. More than anything, the themes at its core really resonate. This may likely be the best animated film of the year.