If you had told me at the beginning of the year that my favorite animated feature of 2016 would not be a Disney film, I would have scoffed. After all, I'm a self-professed Mouse House fanatic, right down to the GPS coordinates of Cinderella Castle tattooed on my forearm (my wife has the same ink - that's the spot where we got engaged). And yet, despite my appreciation for Finding Dory and my unabashed love for Zootopia, neither of those films can hold a candle to Kubo and the Two Strings, the latest offering from Oregon-based stop-motion animation studio LAIKA.
Heavily influenced by Japanese folklore - both visually and narratively - the film centers around Kubo (Art Parkinson), a young boy with a remarkable gift that animates origami sculptures whenever he strums the strings of his shamisen (a traditional Japanese instrument that resembles a lute). By day, Kubo enthralls the local villagers as he uses his power to recount stories of his father, the legendary samurai warrior Hanzo, and his indestructible armor. By night, Kubo cares for his mother, who spends most of her time in a trance-like state thanks to an injury sustained in the film's opening sequence, as she frantically tries to escape the wrath of her father, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes).
When Kubo unwittingly stays out after dark, thus alerting his grandfather to his location, he's forced to embark on a quest to reassemble the pieces of his father's armor in hopes that its power will be enough to withstand doom steadily marching toward him. Traversing the countryside while being pursued by his aunts - twin sisters (voiced by Rooney Mara) in terrifying painted Noh masks - Kubo finds helps in the form of an ill-tempered monkey (Charlize Theron) and a samurai beetle (Matthew McConaughey). As the trio battle one fantastical creature after another, with each encounter leading to another piece of the mystical armor, it almost feels as though we're watching a cinematic rendition of a Legend of Zelda-style video game - and that's not a bad thing.
From a storytelling perspective, Kubo and the Two Strings is tremendous for the bulk of its 101 minutes, but a thrilling action sequence on the open water somewhere around the midpoint of the film gives way to a third act that never quite reaches the same heights. The inevitable confrontation between Kubo and his sinister grandfather comes across as somewhat lackluster, and although the film is trying to drive home a very pointed emotional message, the execution feels a bit flat. It's the lesser of the film's only real sins, the other being a noticeable lack of Asian voice actors in key roles - sure, George Takei and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa are given a few lines, but in a film steeped so completely in Eastern culture, why are all the major characters voiced by white people?
Directed by LAIKA president and CEO Travis Knight, Kubo and the Two Strings boasts a massive technical leap for the studio, seamlessly blending their trademark stop-motion style with a dizzying blend of computer-generated effects. The result is a truly remarkable achievement in the field of animation, a spectacularly gorgeous adventure with an enormous array of locations, costumes and creatures. Whether you're watching the pint-sized origami version of Hanzo slice and dice his way through paper monsters of all shapes and sizes, or marveling as Kubo's shamisen skills construct a sailboat made entirely out of leaves, there's an endless amount of visual splendor in every frame. Kubo and the Two Strings is breathtaking, it's beautiful, and it's one of the most exceptional films of the year - animated or otherwise.
