“If you must blink, do it now” are the first words we hear from our protagonist, Kubo. Right from the opening scene, you realize that Laika (creators of Coraline, Paranorman, The Boxtrolls) is not afraid of setting a dark tone for a “kids” movie. Travis Knight’s directorial debut of Kubo and the Two Strings boasts a visually stunning stop motion film for the whole family.

Throughout the movie, we learn that Kubo (Art Parkinson) has magic abilities from his shamisen and he uses these abilities to make dancing origami. He goes to the nearby village to put on shows for the passerbys with his dancing origami, but never finishes his story because of restrictions from his mother. She fears that her father, The Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), will find him and take away his his only eye left (he took out the other one at birth). Unfortunately, Kubo forgets about this rule, is found by his aunts, The Sisters (Rooney Mara), and has to run away from home in hopes of defeating The Moon King. Kubo teams up with Monkey (Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey) as they embark on a journey to find three legendary items to help Kubo defeat The Moon King.

This may seem like your typical “hero goes on a journey” type of movie, but Laika proves that they can bring these characters and setting to life thanks to the arduous work of stop motion animation. The emotions and faces that these characters make throughout the movie are so lifelike, and it doesn’t hurt that the voice acting is well done throughout the whole movie. I enjoyed the humor, and I thought that McConaughey and Theron had great chemistry together. One thing I really appreciated about the movie is that they never had any desire to slow down the film and explain how Kubo had the ability to create living origami, they never looked down on the audience, and I truly appreciated that. Kubo and the Two Strings deals with very dark but important subjects for children that most movies wouldn’t dare go near, how to deal with the death of loved ones, and just how important memories are to us. The only issue that I have with the movie is that I felt as if it didn’t have enough of an emotional punch that it could’ve. There were certain moments that I teared up, but sometimes they didn’t leave enough of an emotional impact for me.

Personally,

Kubo and the Two Strings is the best animated movie of the year for me, and is also one of my favorite movies of 2016. I see no reason as to why they won’t win the Oscar this year. Laika, year after year, has set the bar higher for stop motion animation, one look at the movie and you can easily tell just how much hard work and time has been put into it. Yet despite the positive reviews (96% on RT, 83% on Metacritic) and the considerable amount of advertising, Kubo and the Two Strings only made roughly $12.6 million in 3,260 theatres. The $12.6 for opening weekend is the lowest opening for Laika, with Paranorman previously holding the record at $14.1 million. Kubo had a budget of $60 million, and unless the movie finds its audience, it may not even reach past $50 million. What was concerning and frustrating for me, was that I saw this movie a day after it opened, and besides my family, there were only maybe 10 other people in the theatre. This movie and company deserve more of a following, movies like this only come around every once in awhile, and if we don’t learn to appreciate them, Hollywood will keep giving us sequels and remakes to old movies that nobody wants to see. So please, go out and find a theatre near you that’s playing Kubo, and give it a chance, you won’t be disappointed by this action

pack, beautifully animated film.

P.S : Stay for the after credits, Regina Spektor's cover of "When My Guitar Gently Weeps" is worth the wait.