Official Site

Director: Travis Knight

Writers: Marc Haimes (screenplay), Chris Butler (screenplay)

Runtime: 101 min

Main Cast:

• Charlize Theron as Monkey (voice)
• Art Parkinson as Kubo (voice)
• Ralph Fiennes as Moon King (voice)
• George Takei as Hosato (voice)
• Rooney Mara as The Sisters (voice)
• Matthew McConaughey as Beetle (voice)

Review: by The Superior Spider-Sam

First thing to get out of the way- this movie is absolutely gorgeous.

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What I Liked:

The movie is the first stop-motion animated feature to be created with Dolby Vision imaging and Dolby Atmos sound. This is a technical way of saying the movie looks great and sounds better. My seat would literally shake when thunder in sky sounded or when waves of the ocean crashed while Kubo was on his journey. Also, the fact that it is stop-motion, meaning every character was created and brought to life by hand-made paper models rather than CG, is a tremendous feat in its own right. Creators like those behind Kubo and The LEGO Movie, I think, should be recognized and distinguished for have the talent and more importantly the patience to film a feature length presentation using stop motion.

Okay, so it looks beautiful and it sounds better but is it a good movie? The answer is…sort of. The movie is not what I was expecting at all. I thought it would be a fairly straightforward action story in the same vein as Big Hero Six, but the movie tries to go a bit deeper than that in the way the plot evolves. The good news about this is that the movie actually adds a bit of intrigue that I think parents and older viewers can appreciate (more on that later).

Now as far as Kubo’s actual adventure, I felt it was an enjoyable if cliché experience. Kubo- the son of a powerful sorceress and a great warrior- must embark on a quest to find three legendary items that will help him defeat a powerful evil that has descended upon his land. On this journey two companions aid him- Monkey (Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). The action scenes in this film were quite impressive. Kubo using his magic, Monkey using a sword, or Beetle using his bow/arrow to defeat enemies on their quest was always fun. Again, the fact the ambiance was created by the Dolby Voice and Sound technology only helped. Seeing Monkey sword fighting an enemy on a boat while waves crashed around them, or viewing the vibrant colors as Kubo put his magic on display were really some “wow” moments.

The voice acting did not blow me away, but there was not a single voice that was outright bad; so, I’ll say that the actors put forth a solid effort on this one.

What I Didn’t Like:

Okay, I said earlier this movie was not what I expected in that it tried to go a little deep, and that hurt it some.

Kubo’s actual adventure did not start until around the 25-minute mark of the film. Before that, we were subjected to a poorly explained back story that older viewers and parents might not mind; however, I think younger children will not enjoy the slow burn of the beginning of this movie.

This leads me to another issue I had with this movie- I’m not sure who exactly it was marketed to. The movie has moments that parents can understand and appreciate but children would get bored with quickly. Similarly, there are moments so juvenile it’s clear they were made specifically for the children. Also, the movie gets dark – and I mean dark to me, grown man- this isn’t necessarily bad at all, but it is something to think about if you were bringing young children to see it.

My final critique of this movie would be that the story could have been fine tuned for better pacing. This is admittedly a nitpick, but the story boards for this film must not have just consisted of moments that HAD to happen without a reasonable explanation. It is something that has plagued several movies of late in which events seem to just happen in order to move the story along. Is it a deal breaker? No. Will the children care? No. Will parents/ older viewers care? Probably not that much, but I just wanted to mention.

Images Courtesy of IMDB