Kubo and the Two Strings.

Review #836: Kubo and the Two Strings.

Cast
Art Parkinson (Kubo), Charlize Theron (Monkey/Kubo's mother), Matthew McConaughey (Beetle), Ralph Fiennes (Raiden the Moon King), Rooney Mara (the Sisters), George Takei (Hosato), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Hashi), and Brenda Vaccaro (Kameyo) Directed by Travis Knight.

Review
In the two films I've reviewed done by the studio Laika (#189 - Coraline and #240 - Paranorman), they were both enjoyable and wonderfully made animated movies. Fortunately, this film continues that trend. This is an exquisite piece of work that manages to establish (and maintain) a dark sense of adventure and fantasy, with a fair cast of characters and gorgeous imagination and animation. Parkinson does a fine job in the lead role, giving this character the needed weight and depth to make him more than just a typical fantasy kid lead. Theron and McConaughey are also exceptional, managing to keep the movie on its heels, with a few moments of laughs between the trio as a whole. It's a fun movie, complete with enough of everything for everyone; mot to spoil anything, but this is also a movie that pulls enough strings and twists correctly as well. The stop-motion animation is wonderful to watch, managing to help make the world the movie builds to life perfectly, such as when the movie utilizes origami paper (a miniature warrior created by the paper is with the group for most of the film) to great advantage. Fiennes isn't in the movie until the last half of the film (with Mara being seen more often, playing the two sisters wickedly well), but he makes for a fine enough villain, with a climax that is pretty spectacular to watch as well. At 102 minutes, this is a fine film to watch, with exceptional marks in almost every subject. It's clear that there was a lot of labor and love put into this film, and I applaud them for making a movie as fun as this. Despite the limited amount of people at the theater for the film, this was still a good time.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.