You think you can work in a fire-breathing chicken?

Kubo and the Two Strings

(2016)

(SPOILERS) Laika studios have received much acclaim for their undoubtedly first-rate stop motion animation technique, but I’ve tended to the lukewarm on their output’s overall quality. Coraline was a strong feature debut, but both ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls came up short for me. Kubo and the Two Strings represents a significant uptick, one that shows off a mastery of tone and atmosphere, but it also suggests Laika still need to beef up their script department.

Kubo’s a movie about the power of storytelling that ironically exhibits significant deficiencies in storytelling, and an animation about the power of intergenerational forgiveness that fudges the delivery, but the sheer technical artistry on display is something else, imbuing a lyrical, dream-like quality that far exceeds the scope of their last couple of pictures in depth and resonance.

Kubo (voiced by Art “Rickon Stark” Parkinson) is a master storyteller, holding his village rapt with unfinished tales and magical origami, which he introduces with the warning “If you must blink, do it now”. But his real tale is one of familial abuse in which his grandfather took one of his eyes and is intent on taking the other, such that his mother Sariatu (Charlize Theron) fled with him. When Kubo goes out after dark, against his mother’s instructions, Sariatu’s creepy flying sisters Karasu and Washi (Rooney Mara) find him – reminiscent in style of A Chinese Ghost Story – and he must flee again, this time on a quest to find his samurai father Hanzo’s protective armour, accompanied by a miniature, origami version of his dad to guide him. That, and a made-flesh snow monkey as his protector. Along the way, Beetle (Matthew McConaughey) joins them, a samurai trained by Hanzo who has lost his memory and been turned into a part-stag beetle.

Monkey: Magic is not supposed to be easy. It needs dedication.

There’s a danger in using magical and fantastic devices in stories in that the temptation is to assume anything goes. Kubo’s powers come from his mother, of the lineage of the Moon King (his grandfather). It isn’t abundantly clear what exactly the Moon King is or does, other than having beefs with samurais and wanting to extract his grandson’s eyes (to make him immortal, or to divest him of empathy for others, such that, unable to see into the windows of their souls, he will become cold and callous – a wonderful message for blind people everywhere to take away there).

The Moon King isn’t human, but he becomes human at the end in a rather confused, if undoubtedly nobly-motivated decision on the part of writer-director Travis Knight and his co-scribe Arianne Sutner. The idea is one of forgiveness, but it rather serves to embrace the healing power of lies as the defeated, amnesiac old man is allowed to rest easy in his dotage, with Kubo and the entire village telling him what a wonderful fellow he is. So what’s the message here? Forgive and forget? Who does that serve? How does one learn or atone if one considers it acceptable to leave perpetrators under a veil of illusion?

It’s additionally curious that Kubo pulls its punches, having been so upfront in leaving its title character bereft of both his parents – the picture’s a dark one, both thematically and atmospherically – by presenting him with the consolation of their Force ghost incarnations to comfort him (apart from anything, when he says “I still need you”, we can’t help but feel he doesn’t actually, and this is a sop from filmmakers who have lost their nerve at the final hurdle).

Washi: You’ve been together all this time and haven’t even realised?

There are other questions too, such as why Monkey/Sariatu (one of the reveals is that she considered it best not to tell her son she had used magic to become Monkey, for reasons that don’t entirely connect) doesn’t recognise Hanzo (I’m assuming his face hasn’t changed), why/how/when Hanzo hid his armour, particular since he was preparing to go and find it, and why Hanzo was cursed rather than killed as originally planned. To an extent, none of these are deal breakers, and the picture is sufficiently invested in its own abstracted milieu, in a Wizard of Oz fashion (I was half expecting the entire story to be revealed as a story within a story), that they don’t largely, significantly, detract, but you’re left with a nagging feeling that Travis and Sutner were entirely laissez-faire with notions of internal logic.

The picture’s take on existence and the hereafter is a bit of a patchwork too, in which, we are told, when we die we shift and transform “so we can continue our story on another plane” (apparently the one Ben Kenobi goes to). Meanwhile, the Moon King, in whatever realm he exists (non-corporeal, it seems) warns Kubo that if, he doesn’t give up his eye, “You’ll be stuck down here, in this hell” to which Kubo replies that for every terrible thing down here there’s something far more beautiful, which at least strikes a marginally optimistic note, if not an outright denial.

The voice cast serve the story extremely well. Theron’s suitably stern and serious, while McConaughey is having a whale of a time, pitching his delivery somewhere between Buzz Lightyear and Patrick Warburton, served a succession of hugely winning comic relief lines and moments. There’s also the very wise advice that Kubo should include a chicken in his story (“The chicken is funny”), something Moana astutely lived by. The character design work is sympathetic and evocative, eschewing the tendency to the grotesque of previous Laika offerings. Dario Marianelli’s score is a beauty (if the visual effects deserved an Oscar nod, the score did even more so).

With a bit more work and a few more drafts, Kubo and the Two Strings (not a great title) might have been the masterpiece many have acclaimed it to be. Which makes it sadder that the box office response was tepid at best. These pictures don’t come cheap, and there just doesn’t seem to be the same appetite for them as their crowd-pleasing CGI big studio cousins. Still, Laika aren’t over with yet, with another animation due next year. Knight, however, the production company’s president and CEO, has hitched his cart to a bereft franchise, signing up to direct Transformers spin-off Bumblebee. Somehow, I don’t think “depth” will be thrown around to describe his live-action debut.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

Nanobots aren’t just for Christmas.

No Time to Die (2021) (SPOILERS) You know a Bond movie is in trouble when it resorts to wholesale appropriation of lines and even the theme song from another in order to “boost” its emotional heft. That No Time to Die – which previewed its own title song a year and a half before its release to resoundingly underwhelmed response, Grammys aside – goes there is a damning indictment of its ability to eke out such audience investment in Daniel Craig’s final outing as James (less so as 007). As with Spectre , the first half of No Time to Die is, on the whole, more than decent Bond fare, before it once again gets bogged down in the quest for substance and depth from a character who, regardless of how dapper his gear is, resolutely resists such outfitting.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Big things have small beginnings.

Prometheus (2012) Post- Gladiator , Ridley Scott opted for an “All work and no pondering” approach to film making. The result has been the completion of as many movies since the turn of the Millennium as he directed in the previous twenty years. Now well into his seventies, he has experienced the most sustained period of success of his career. For me, it’s also been easily the least-interesting period. All of them entirely competently made, but all displaying the machine-tooled approach that was previously more associated with his brother.

Beer is for breakfast around here. Drink or begone.

Cocktail (1988) (SPOILERS) When Tarantino claims the 1980s (and 1950s) as the worst movie decade, I’m inclined to invite him to shut his butt down. But should he then flourish Cocktail as Exhibit A, I’d be forced to admit he has a point. Cocktail is a horrifying, malignant piece of dreck, a testament to the efficacy of persuasive star power on a blithely rapt and undiscerning audience. Not only is it morally vacuous, it’s dramatically inert. And it relies on Tom’s toothy charms to a degree that would have any sensitive soul rushed to the A&E suffering from toxic shock (Tom’s most recently displayed toothy charms will likely have even his staunchest devotees less than sure of themselves, however, as he metamorphoses into your favourite grandma). And it was a huge box office hit.

Isn’t sugar better than vinegar?

Femme Fatale (2002) (SPOILERS) Some have attempted to rescue Femme Fatale from the dumpster of critical rejection and audience indifference with the claim that it’s De Palma’s last great movie. It isn’t that by a long shot, but it might rank as the last truly unfettered display of his obsessions and sensibilities, complete with a ludicrous twist – so ludicrous, it’s either a stroke of genius or mile-long pile up.

It's something trying to get out.

The Owl Service (1969-70) I may have caught a glimpse of Channel 4’s repeat of The Owl Service in 1987, but not enough to stick in the mind. My formative experience was Alan Garner’s novel, which was read several years earlier during English lessons. Garner’s tapestry of magical-mythical storytelling had an impact, with its possession theme and blending of legend with the here and now. Garner depicts a Britain where past and present are mutable, and where there is no safety net of objective reality; life becomes a strange waking dream. His fantasy landscapes are both attractive and disturbing; the uncanny reaching out from the corners of the attic. But I have to admit that the themes of class and discrimination went virtually unnoticed in the wake of such high weirdness. The other Garner books I read saw young protagonists transported to fantasy realms. The resonance of The Owl Service came from the fragmenting of the rural normal. When the author notes that he neve

Who’s got the Figgy Port?

Loki (2021) (SPOILERS) Can something be of redeemable value and shot through with woke (the answer is: Mad Max: Fury Road )? The two attributes certainly sound essentially irreconcilable, and Loki ’s tendencies – obviously, with new improved super-progressive Kevin Feige touting Disney’s uber-agenda – undeniably get in the way of what might have been a top-tier MCU entry from realising its full potential. But there are nevertheless solid bursts of highly engaging storytelling in the mix here, for all its less cherishable motivations. It also boasts an effortlessly commanding lead performance from Tom Hiddleston; that alone puts Loki head and shoulders above the other limited series thus far.

These are not soda cans you asked me to get for you.

The Devil’s Own (1997) (SPOILERS) Naturally, a Hollywood movie taking the Troubles as a backdrop is sure to encounter difficulties. It’s the push-pull of wanting to make a big meaningful statement about something weighty, sobering and significant in the real world and bottling it when it comes to the messy intricacies of the same. So inevitably, the results invariably tend to the facile and trite. I’m entirely sure The Devil’s Own would have floundered even if Harrison Ford hadn’t come on board and demanded rewrites, but as it is, the finished movie packs a lot of talent to largely redundant end.

Did you not just hand over a chicken to someone?

The Father (2020) (SPOILERS) I was in no great rush to see The Father , expecting it to be it to be something of an ordeal in the manner of that lavishly overpraised euthanasia-fest Amour. As with the previous Oscars, though, the Best Picture nominee I saw last turned out to be the best of the bunch. In that case, Parasite , its very title beckoning the psychic global warfare sprouting shoots around it, would win the top prize. The Father , in a year of disappointing nominees, had to settle for Best Actor. Ant’s good, naturally, but I was most impressed with the unpandering manner in which Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton approached material that might easily render one highly unstuck.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog