starring Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey
directed by Travis Knight
102 minutes
Kubo (Art Parkinson), a one-eyed, 10-year-old, street performer with magical abilities that are linked to his shamisen (Japanese stringed instrument) goes on a quest with talking monkey (Charlize Theron) and a human-sized samurai beetle (Matthew McConaughey) after his mother is killed by her sisters. He seeks his deceased father's armor, helmet, and sword but his aunts and the Moon King (his maternal grandfather) do everything in their power to stop him.
I smiled and laughed occasionally as I watched this movie. The animation was breathtakingly beautiful, from the opening of the movie all the way through the end credits.
I was very moved by the story but a bit disappointed to learn that all of the who actors played the lead parts in this film are White. It's a shame that they couldn't have looked a little harder and found Asian or Asian-American actors to play those roles. The actors who voice the various lead roles did a great job but is just seems wrong to me to make a movie set in Asia and have the lead parts all played by White people.
It wasn't hard to see some of the reveals before they happened. Some of the characters could have used some backstory. Kubo's aunts are just evil. They are determined to complete the mission upon which their father set them. They don't seem to have any other motivations. I didn't need them to be necessarily redeemable in some way but it would have been nice if there was more to their personalities than what was in the movie.
Similarly I didn't fully comprehend the Moon King at the end of the film. What happened to him? Why did the people of the village suddenly rally around him after he had lost his magical abilities and his memory? I'm not saying that they should have attacked him but what moved them to be so nice to him given how dangerously evil he was moments before? I could go on, there are other aspects of the story that I don't feel comfortable just waving away. Suffice it to say that the animation is spectacular but the story isn't, even though it has it's moments.
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