Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings is a tale where past meets the present. The movie opens with a voiceover narration and a woman trapped in the middle of the sea during a thunderstorm. The approach on storytelling makes it seem that the narrator is simply passing on the story of the woman, but it is when the titular character is introduced, an eye already missing from his face. At present day, it is later revealed that Kubo has quite a past, and must now journey to protect himself, learning about his roots and source of power along the way.

The animation is beautiful, with certain scenes standing out. The story was brought out with a lot of detail through the animation, but I’ve found the film in general severely lacking. For a film that focuses on Kubo, he has poor character development, as well as the other characters. The movie spends a lot of time on the journey, yet not enough to make a significant impact on the well being of the characters. It also tried to build a rapport between the characters, but spends little time developing relationships; they end up staying detached to each other, and in turn affect the impact of the story. The movie does end up predictable but I think I wouldn’t have minded it if it was done very well. 

The voice acting wasn’t top notch either. Charlize Theron and Matthew McConaughey are good actors but they don’t make a great voice pairing. They don’t seem to be on the same page when it came to their character interactions. Even Art Parkinson was kind of bland. For a story that has a lot of adventure, the characters don’t sound very adventurous. 

Still, this is one of the better animated movies I’ve seen this year. The point of the movie doesn’t really come across the screen and while a good effort, could have used a lot of improvement.

Cast: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey
Director: Travis Knight
Year: 2016