Director: Travis Knight
Writer: Marc Haimes & Chris Butler
Release Date: 2016
Foxfire Category: Snack Food
MPAA Rating: PG
One-line Review: a magical tale with a lack-luster ending
When a film is billed as a stop-motion animated movie, the creators are reminding you, almost shouting at you, “This is magic.” Although I know that the characters on the screen are only puppets manipulated frame-by-frame to appear real, I always fall under the animator’s spell. They have breathed life into these puppets, just like I did with my childhood toys. I don’t lean forward in my seat, trying to figure out how they pulled off their trick—this isn’t that kind of magic show. Instead, I fall back into the world of the story. I gasp in fear when the hero stumbles. I cheer when he triumphs. I cry when catastrophe strikes. The enchantment has done its work. And not many stop-motion movies cast a spell as completely as Laika Animation Studio’s Kubo and the Two Strings.
This movie follows Kubo, a one-eyed boy who tells stories with a magic shamisen. As he plucks the strings, squares of paper fold themselves into complicated origami characters and act out Kubo’s stories. When he’s not spinning yarns in the town square for money, he’s caring for his mother who suffers from some sort of dementia. His dad died before Kubo was old enough to know him. The story kicks into gear when, in an attempt to commune with his deceased father in a mystic ritual, Kubo breaks his mother’s one rule—never stay out after dark. In the darkness, he exposes himself to his wicked aunts who are hunting for him, hoping to claim his remaining eye for their father and Kubo’s grandfather, the Moon King.
The tale unfolds with Kubo searching for magic armor with the help of a monkey and a beetle. As weird as that might seem, the weirdness is matched and exceeded by the charm. The storytellers weave a world that’s both beautiful and terrifying, a world full of life and death, good and evil. It’s a delight to watch Kubo and his friends inhabit this world and fight for it with joy and gusto. Unfortunately, the tale unravels at the end. As one critic said, the filmmakers have the same problem Kubo does: they aren’t very good at finishing the story. Instead of vanquishing evil once and for all by telling the truth, Kubo sides with the darkness and lies. I can’t say more than that without giving up the plot, but you’ll know it when it happens.
With that caveat about the conclusion of the tale, I commend this movie to you. In fact, the lame ending provides parents with a splendid opportunity for discussion about morality and truth-telling.