What I liked: This movie was beautiful. Not in a planet
earth or march of the penguins kind of way but in the mastery of modeling and
color kind of way. It was a pleasure to watch and to think about the care and
effort that went into creating each shot. I don’t see much stop motion and it
was fun to see something that wasn’t CG. There were a number of images that I
really liked like the magically folding origami and the leaf boat. The story
was also refreshingly different. Not that it didn’t follow standard story
telling techniques or predictable dialogue. It was essentially a new fairy tale
and I had all the childlike pleasure and excitement of hearing a fairy tale for
the first time. There was all the absurdity of fairy tales, “why is there a
wicked witch?” “since when can a dead princess be revived with a kiss?” “why
would you even make a glass coffin?”, but since it was a fairy tale there was
just the acceptance that that is how it is in this magical land. The villains
were delightfully creepy. I liked the resolution and the overall emphasis on
the power of stories. I also thought the use of the credits song was perfect.
What I didn’t: The monkey beetle dynamic worked for me in
the beginning but got progressively annoying and odd. Monkey’s interactions
with Kubo also seemed uncharacteristic by the end of the film. I’m still making
up my mind about the very end, I think that it would have been stronger ending
it a little earlier. I know I said just accept things because it is a fairy
tale but what was with the giant eyeballs? Also what happened to the evil
sisters, are they gone? Also camping in a dead whale is never a good plan, even
in a fairy tale.
Who should watch this? Older kids and people who like
imaginative stories with artistic presentation. It probably is too scary for
little kids.
Would I watch it again? Yes.
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