Coastal View News
“If you must blink, do it now,” says Kubo (Art Parkinson)
as the movie opens. Kubo goes on, “Pay careful attention to everything you see
no matter how unusual it may seem.”
Kubo is right. Get your blinking done during the
previews. Because “Kubo and the Two Strings” is a feast—for the heart, mind,
and indeed, for the eyes—and you don’t want to miss a morsel.
Kubo is also right to imply that you are in for something
unusual. The usual part of the story is that Kubo is a young Japanese boy who
lives with his mom in a small village. The un- part is, well, everything else.
First of all, Kubo has magic. When he strums his magical
shamisen (which is a lute-like musical instrument), paper figures—people, cranes,
dragons, chickens, and whatever else Kubo wants—come to life to do Kubo’s
bidding.
This is mostly a parlor trick. That is, until—and here we
continue with the un- side of unusual—he learns that he is being chased by his
Aunts (Rooney Mara) and Grandfather (aka Moon King—Ralph Fiennes), who killed
his samurai father, took one of Kubo’s eyes (yes, he only has one eye), and are
looking to snatch Kubo’s other eye so that Kubo, like them, becomes blind to
the cares of others. After learning all of that, Kubo needs to repurpose his
magic.
Kubo’s mission is to find his father’s magical armor—a
sword, breastplate, and helmet—with the help of Monkey (Charlize Theron) and
Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). Monkey was once a little wooden figurine that
Kubo carried around. Now she is a flesh-and-blood monkey. Beetle—a sort of quixotic
doofus (though in a thoroughly disarming way)—was a samurai, but now he is
half-man, half-insect, and sports six appendages.
Together they journey across land and sea in search of
their treasure, while fending off the stuff of nightmares—a towering skeleton
monster, giant glowing eyeballs that can “see into you”, an enormous,
dragonesque bug, and, perhaps creepiest of all, two magical sisters hovering
above the ground wearing lifeless, colorless porcelain masks, mocking their
victims with their raspy, ethereal voices (This is a kid’s movie?).
Unfortunately, “Kubo and the Two Strings” does end up
indulging in some cliché and vague mumbo jumbo toward the end. But these
foibles are so easy to overlook, given its other virtues.
Charm smooths out flaws. And this movie is so charming. Each of the characters is
striking. From the sprightly Kubo to the stern yet witty Monkey to the
sincerely goofy Beetle and even to an old village woman with a bright smile and
warm laugh—each character is unique and authentic. I would say they are well
developed, and they are, but the fact is, they exude their personalities so
effectively that no lengthy development is needed. You understand them—you
totally get them—as soon as you meet them.
One sign that these are well-crafted characters is their
humor. They are really funny, but in a subtle, “you’d have to know him/her”
sort of way. It’s not funny like you go to a comedy club and some guy you never
met tells you a bunch of jokes with punch lines. It’s funny like you’re hanging
out in your living room with your friend, who is real, sarcastic (but not
mean), and doesn’t take herself at all seriously.
The indispensible conduit for all of this—for the charm,
the humor, the captivating story, and lilting dialogue—is the animation. It is
3D stop motion animation. Each character is painstakingly crafted, and then,
frame by frame, moved or adjusted so as to give the appearance of motion. A
team of animators pumped out a measly 4.3 seconds of animation per week!
The result is breathtaking. The colors are crisp and
arresting, the faces are alive with subtle expressions, and the overall aesthetic
transports us to another world. This is crucial. For while this movie feels
fanciful, exotic, and indeed, unusual, it also feels warmly familiar and very
real.
