“Hauntingly beautiful” isn’t usually how I’d describe stop-motion animation, but those are the exact words I used to describe Kubo and the Two Strings to a friend.
If you don’t know, stop-motion is a very methodical animation technique in which statuette figures—in the case of Kubo, largely clay—are created and posed, photographed, adjusted slightly, and photographed again, ever so slowly building into a movie.
So, stop-motion is the perfect medium for a movie like Kubo. This is a movie about stories: the stories our parents teach us, the stories we tell other people and ourselves, and the way those stories shape our realities. It’s about a boy, Kubo, learning about his family and deciding what their story will mean for him.
Kubo and the Two Strings is so beautifully animated, its characters and effects so deftly created that it feels like magic. Origami cranes fold themselves and fly through the air, propelled by the music of Kubo’s shamisen. A ship made of fallen leaves sails across a nearly endless body of water. A monkey and beetle attempt to help young Kubo on his quest to find his father’s armor and defeat his mother’s evil sisters.
If you must blink, do so now; then go immediately to watch Kubo and the Two Strings.
Review by Cathlin