A good movie

I already saw this movie but I was eager to rewatch it, this time with some subtitles, to see if I would get a better a grip on the story. Well, to be honest, I pretty much ended up with the same feelings though. The first time around, since I kept hearing some really good things about this movie, I had some really high expectations and it did turn out to be Laika’s most ambitious and most gorgeous movie so far. Indeed, the damned thing looked really amazing and only therefore it is worth watching this flick and, right now, you can only wonder if Laika will manage to top this with their future productions. And, yet, somehow, I have to admit that I was not completely sold by the whole thing. I guess it had to with the story which was quite original and full of magic but, in my opinion, it was in fact a rather simple story but told in a rather convoluted way. Eventually, even though this constant use of magic stuff might sound interesting, in my opinion, it made the whole thing actually really random. For example, what was the point of the origami thing, except that it looked really awesome? What was Kubo’s mother problem? Was she brain damaged? How come she seemed to be fine when she was a monkey? Why could they find/detect Kubo only at night? Basically, pretty much anything could happen at any moment for any reason. As a result, it drastically lowered the stakes and also the impact of what actually happened to the characters. Still, this Japanese feudal world was really cool and, in spite of its flaws, it was still the most interesting tale delivered by Laika so far. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still an impressive animated feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.